Behold: just one part of the immense interstellar molecular cloud of NGC 1976, aka Messier 42, aka the Great Nebula in Orion: To wit:

…the part of the nebula’s centre known as M43 is shown as taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. The entire Orion Nebula, including both M42 and M43 spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

(Image: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Reprocessing & Copyright: Bryan Goff)

Previously: Inside Orion

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Behold: M42, the great stellar nurseries of the Orion Nebula – the most famous of all astronomical nebulae. To wit:

Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the featured deep image in assigned colours highlighted by emission in oxygen and hydrogen, wisps and sheets of dust and gas are particularly evident. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. In addition to housing a bright open cluster of stars known as the Trapezium, the Orion Nebula contains many stellar nurseries. These nurseries contain much hydrogen gas, hot young stars, proplyds, and stellar jets spewing material at high speeds. Also known as M42, the Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

(Image: Josep M. Drudis & Don Goldman)

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