Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2016

36 SPACE CHRONICLES goes by the name of NGC 2071. The French astronomer Pierre Méchain is credited with discovering Messier 78 in 1780. However, it is today more commonly known as the 78 th entry in French astronomer Charles Messier’s catalogue, added to it in December of 1780. When observed with visible light instruments, like ESO’s Wide Field Imager at the La Silla Observa- tory, Messier 78 appears as a glow- ing, azure expanse surrounded by dark ribbons. Cosmic dust reflects and scatters the light streaming from the young, bluish stars in Messier 78’s heart, the reason it is known as a reflection nebula. The dark ribbons are thick clouds of dust that block the visible light origi- nating behind them. These dense, cold regions ae prime locations for the formation of new stars. When Messier 78 and its neighbours are ob- served in the submillimetre light be- tween radio waves and infrared light, for example with the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) tele- scope, they reveal the glow of dust ESO’s dustbuster reveals hidden stars by ESO M essier 78, or M78, is a well- studied example of a reflec- tion nebula. It is located ap- proximately 1600 light-years away in the constellation of Orion (The Hun- ter), just to the upper left of the three stars that make up the belt of this familiar landmark in the sky. In this image, Messier 78 is the central, bluish haze in the centre; the other reflection nebula towards the right T his richly detailed view of the star formation region Messier 78, in the constellation of Orion (The Hun- ter), was taken with the VISTA infrared survey telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. As well as the blue regions of reflected light from the hot young stars the image also shows streams of dark dust and the red jets emerging from stars in the process of formation. [ESO]