Dark Shrouds in Orion: LDN 1622 | Mayall Telescope

Dark Shrouds in Orion: LDN 1622 | Mayall Telescope

The shadowy clouds of LDN 1622 are pictured in this observation from the 4-meter Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Arizona, produced through a program of the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab.

LDN 1622 is a dark nebula, so called because these dense interstellar clouds of gas and dust blot out light from background objects, appearing as ink-dark clouds against a backdrop of stars. This enigmatic cosmic cloud lies 1,300 light-years from Earth in the nearby Orion complex, a star-forming region thronging with young stars and other dark nebulae.

Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)/T. A. Rector

Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab) & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)

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