Europe's Herschel space telescope has imaged one of the most popular subjects in the sky - the Horsehead Nebula - and its environs. The distinctively shaped molecular gas cloud is sited some 1,300 light-years from Earth in the Constellation Orion. It is in a region of space undergoing active star formation - something Herschel has been most keen to study. The Hubble space observatory has also returned to the Horsehead scene, to celebrate 23 years in orbit.Together, these two great facilities give scientists a much broader insight into what is taking place in this familiar patch of the heavens.
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