Orion is the gift that keeps on giving. When you look toward
that constellation in the sky, you’re facing a region of massive
ongoing star formation. A sprawling cloud of gas and dust
occupies Orion’s midsection, most of it thick and opaque. Some
of it is illuminated by stars embedded inside, and some by the
reflected light of nearby stars. M78 is a section of the cloud
just above Orion’s Belt that’s evidence of the latter. But even
then, much of the dust is dark to our eyes. But if you look in
the far, far infrared, where warm material glows, a different —
and spectacular — view appears: [Click to blackbodyenate, or
grab the 2300 x 3500 pixel version.] This is actually a
combination of two views: one in visible light from the
Digitized Sky Survey, and the other from the APEX telescope,
which can see light in the submillimeter wavelength range — 1000
times the wavelength the human eye can see. Only cold, cold
objects emit at this wavelength, things a few degrees above
absolute zero. The blue material in the i