Alnitak and the Flame Nebula

What lights up the Flame Nebula? Fifteen hundred gentle years away in direction of the constellation of Orion lies a nebula which, from its glow and darkish mud lanes, looks, on the left, like a billowing fireplace. But fireplace, the like a flash acquisition of oxygen, is now not what makes this Flame glow. Reasonably the shiny significant particular person Alnitak, the easternmost significant particular person within the Belt of Orion visible on the far left, shines energetic gentle into the Flame that knocks electrons far from the immense clouds of hydrogen gasoline that live there. Powerful of the glow results when the electrons and ionized hydrogen recombine. The featured image of the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024) used to be taken across three visible color bands with facet added by a prolonged length exposure taken in gentle emitted absolute top by hydrogen. The Flame Nebula is share of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, a significant particular person-forming position that comprises the famed Horsehead Nebula.