Flight Through the Orion Nebula in Visible and Infrared Light [Ultra HD]

This visualization explores the Orion Nebula using both visible and infrared light. The sequence begins with a wide-field view of the sky showing the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, then zooms down to the scale of the Orion Nebula. The visible light observation (from the Hubble Space Telescope) and the infrared light observation (from the Spitzer Space Telescope) are compared first in two-dimensional images, and then in three-dimensional models. The infrared observations generally show cooler temperature gas and many faint stars that shine primarily at longer wavelengths. The visible observations show finer details including the wispy bow shocks and tadpole-shaped proplyds.