January 6, 2005
Even the most precise clock in the world cannot measure how unlikely your existence really is.
UKIRT: Aloha Orion
Birthday · January 6, 2005
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published January 6, 2005. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
At the edge of a dense molecular cloud, filaments of gas, cosmic dust, and a multitude of young stars beckon in this penetrating image of the Orion Nebula. Alluring structures in the well-known star forming region are revealed here in infrared light as viewed by a new Hawaiian eye - WFCAM - a powerful wide field camera commissioned at the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) on Mauna Kea. Only a fraction of WFCAM's full field, this picture covers about 11 light-years at the 1,500 light-year distance of the nebula. In the image, otherwise invisible infrared light has been mapped into visible colors. Red represents narrow-band infrared emission from hydrogen molecules at a wavelength of 2.12 microns, green is emission at 2.2 microns, and blue is emission at 1.25 microns. Visible light has a wavelength of about 0.5 microns (micrometers).