Flame Nebula

The Flame Nebula (also known as Flaming Tree or NGC 2024 ) is an emission nebula in the constellation Orion. The Flame Nebula is part of the Orion complex, a star-forming region to which, among other things also belong to the IC 434 Horsehead Nebula and the Orion Nebula.

The Flame Nebula was discovered in 1786 by Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel.

Morphology

The apparent expansion of the Flame Nebula is 30.0 ' x 30.0 ' and its distance is estimated to be about 1500 light years. From the Earth seen from the Flame Nebula is located immediately east of the bright star Alnitak (Zeta Orionis ); these are, however, only an apparent close, because the latter is only about half as far from the earth and there is no connection between the two objects.

Infrared studies of the nebula have a dense and very young star clusters in the central region of the flame nebula shown, which is obscured in visible light by dust clouds. The age of the cluster is estimated to be less than a million years; many of its stars are surrounded by accretion disks. One of these stars with the name IRS2b was also identified as a putative ionization of the nebula.