Orion Nebula

nebula

The Orion Nebula (M42) — the nearest large stellar nursery, ~1,340 light-years away in the Orion Arm, glowing where the newborn Trapezium cluster lights the gas. Visible to the naked eye as the fuzzy middle 'star' of Orion's Sword.

Open in 3D viewSee Orion Nebula in the live, interactive 3D map

Science

Physical

Type: Emission nebula + young star cluster (H II region)
Distance: ~1,344 light-years
Diameter: ~24 light-years
Powered by: The Trapezium — four hot newborn stars

How we know

Note: The image is a REAL Hubble Space Telescope mosaic (NASA/ESA/STScI). It is shown as a camera-facing billboard at the nebula's real position — a nebula's true 3-D shape and orientation cannot be shown, so the image is presented as we see it from Earth.

Discovery & history

Name: Messier's 42nd catalogue entry; 'the Great Nebula in Orion', in the Hunter's Sword.

Catalogued by the naked eye for centuries; first drawn as a nebula by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc in 1610 and by Huygens in 1659. Hubble, Spitzer and JWST have since imaged thousands of protoplanetary disks and brown dwarfs forming in it.

Images

The Orion Nebula (M42) — a real Hubble Space Telescope mosaic of the nearest large stellar nursery. — NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (STScI/ESA) — public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Images from open archives · credit shown per image