The Valley of Orion

This exciting and unfamiliar view of the Orion Nebula is a visualization based on astronomical data and movie rendering techniques.

Up close and personal with a famous stellar nursery normally seen from 1,500 light-years away, the digitally modeled frame transitions from a visible light representation based on Hubble Image data on the left to Infrared Astronomy data from the Spitzer Space Telescope on the right.

The perspective at the center looks along a valley over a light-year wide, in the wall of the region’s giant molecular cloud. [Orion’s] valley ends in a cavity carved by the energetic winds and radiation of the massive central stars of the Trapezium Star Cluster.

The single frame is part of a multiwavelength, three-dimensional video that lets the viewer experience an immersive, three minute flight through the Great Nebula of Orion.