NGC 2174

NGC 2174 is a small part of the Monkey Head Nebula located about 6400 light-years away in the constellation of Orion. It is a stellar nursery where stars are currently being created. The stars that are forming emit ultraviolet radiation, which is ionizing. This excites the dust and gas around these stars and causes it to be pushed away. Thus these huge columns are slowly being formed.

 

This image was taken using infrared wavelengths of light. This nebula is mostly made up of hydrogen gas, which is warmed by the ionizing radiation as mentioned in the above paragraph. This causes the dust and gas to heat up and emit infrared light itself. Thus the Hubble Space Telescope was able to take the image in infrared light to get an amazing look at what was going on in this nebulae!

 

This image was taken over multiple days by the Hubble Space Telescope. Those days were February 7, 8, 11, and 24 of 2014. It was an image created using three greyscale images assigned to the RGB channels in Photoshop CC. The images used were:

 

RED: hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc3-ir_ngc2174_f160w

GREEN: hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc3-ir_ngc2174_f125w

BLUE: hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc3-ir_ngc2174_f105w

 

Resources:

 

Complete images can be found here as well as more information about how the Hubble Heritage team created this image! HST 24th Anniversary Image: An Infrared Mosaic of NGC 2174

 

The reference image used to help guide creation of this image can be viewed here!

 

These images are associated with HST proposal 13623: Hubble Heritage observations of NGC 2174 for HST 24th anniversary

 

This image was processed by myself, Alexandra Nachman, on 01/07/21, using data from the Hubble Legacy Archive. Image taken by NASA/ESA/Hubble Space Telescope.

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