THE DISTRIBUTION OF DUST INSIDE THE ORION NEBULA

By inverting the brightness integral for the dust-scattered continuum, we have determined how the dust grains are distributed inside the Orion nebula. The scattering characteristics of the Orion dust at a given wavelength is kept constant within the nebula, and the geometry of the nebula is assumed to have a hemispherical shape. The resulting radial distance dependence of the distribution of dust number density, $N_d(r)$, shows that the dust grains are depleted at the central region of the Orion nebula and concentrated in the region $5'{\sim}6'$ away from the Trapezium stars. The scattering characteristics of the Orion dust are of moderately forward throwing nature, and the Orion dust has low values of albedo.