It combines information recorded at three different invisible infrared wavelengths in a red, green, and blue color scheme and covers about 30x24 degrees on the sky. Most of Orion's visually impressive stars don't stand out, but bright Betelgeuse does appear as a small purplish dot just above center. Immediately to the right of Betelgeuse and prominent in the IRAS skyview , expanding debris from a stellar explosion, a supernova remnant , is seen as a large bright ring-shaped feature. The famous gas clouds in Orion's sword glow brightly as the yellow regions at the lower right. No longer operational, IRAS used a telescope cooled by liquid helium to detect celestial infrared radiation .
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