New ESO instrument reveals the heart of Orion Nebula
The European Southern observatory (ESO) is now the proud owner of a new astronomical instrument, the TIMMI2, which it has installed in a 3.6 metre telescope at La Silla, Chile. Its first images include some of the most penetrating, mid-infrared views ever obtained of the central region of the Orion Nebula, reports ESO. 'The first images have now been obtained and hold great promise for future research programmes with this facility,' says a spokesperson. ESO built the TIMMI2, a thermal infrared multimode instrument, in collaboration with a consortium headed by the Jena university observatory in Germany. It detects infrared radiation in the 5 to 24 micron mid-IR spectral region. This makes it particularly suitable for observing complex processes in the inner-most regions of star forming clouds.