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The Stellar Field and Dust Extinction The bluish haze near the nebula’s glowing wall of dust (lower part) seems to rise like mist from the road after a quick summer shower. The veil gets its bluish colour by scattering light from nearby stars because tiny grains of dust scatter the bluer portion of light more efficiently than other colours. A multitude of stars peeks out from the gases enveloping them. Many of these super-hot stars radiate intense light and let loose violent stellar winds as well. The upper region of this image, in contrast, contains numerous cooler, reddish stars. Some of the stars in this image actually appear redder to our eyes and telescopes due to so-called dust extinction. Unlike the local scattering effect of dust described above, the scattering of light against the comparatively many gas molecules and grains of dust between the area of the nebula and us has an entirely different effect. Along our line of sight, this interstellar matter diffuses the shorter, bluer wavelengths from the spectrum more than longer, redder wavelengths light. As a result, some of the blue light from the stars “gets lost” as it passes through the nebula, resulting in the red hue of the stars.
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