NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an unprecedented look at the Orion Nebula, a turbulent stellar nursery that is one of astronomy's most photogenic celestial regions. Newborn stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon. The crisp image reveals a tapestry of star formation, from the dense pillars of gas and dust that may be the homes of fledgling stars to the hot, young, massive stars that have emerged from their gas-and-dust cocoons and are shaping the nebula with their powerful ultraviolet light.
The Orion Nebula is a perfect laboratory to study how stars are born because it is 1,500 light-years away, a relatively short distance within our 100,000 light-year wide galaxy. Astronomers have a clear view into this crowded stellar maternity ward because massive stars in the center of the nebula have blown out most of the dust and gas in which they formed, carving a cavity in the dark cloud. In this bowl of stars, we see the entire star formation history of Orion printed into the features of the nebula: arcs, blobs, pillars, and rings of dust that resemble cigar smoke. Each feature tells a story of stellar winds from young stars that impact the stellar environment and the material ejected from other stars. Our Sun was probably born 4.5 billion years ago in such a cloud.
Credits
NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Orion Nebula, M42, NGC 1976 |
| Object Description | Emission Nebula |
| R.A. Position | 05h 35m 17.0s |
| Dec. Position | -5° 23' 27.99" |
| Constellation | Orion |
| Distance | The distance to the Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years (460 parsecs). |
| Dimensions | The image is 7.9 arcminutes (3.4 light-years or 1.1 parsecs) wide. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The Hubble image was created from HST data from proposal : M. Robberto (/), and , M. Robberto (/) |
| Instrument | HST>ACS/WFC, HST>WFC3/IR |
| Exposure Dates | Oct. 2004 – Apr. 2005 (ACS), and Feb. 2015 – Oct. 2015 (WFC3/IR) |
| Filters | ACS/WFC: F435W (B), F555W (V), and F775W (i) WFC3/IR: F139M |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image is a composite mosaic of many separate exposures made by the ACS and WFC3 instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope using several different filters isolating the light of specific elements or of specific broad wavelength ranges. The color arises by assigning different hues (colors), to each monochromatic image. In this case, the colors are: Blue: F435W (B) Cyan: F555W (V) Yellow: F775W (i) Red: F139M |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
