Orion Nebula
Hubble Space Telescope mosaic of the Orion Nebula, also known as M42 and NGC 1976; photographed in 2006
Courtesy NASA/HST/JPL-Caltech
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Orion the Hunter is one of the most easily recognized of the 88 official constellations. Although many of its brighter stars are widely separated and lack any intrinsic relationship, the overall region of the sky occupied by Orion is home to a single complex of vast hydrogen clouds. This region, known as the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, is located at a distance of about 1450 light years (~450 parsecs). The brightest, most easily seen, and most photographed cloud in the complex is the Orion Nebula, which in the traditional figure of Orion represents a jewel in the hunter's sword. The Orion Nebula is the closest large star-forming region to the Solar System, a place where thousands of newborn stars of all colors and sizes are igniting out of their native clouds. It lies 1350 light years away (415 parsecs; Menten 2007), and its diameter is about 60 light years (18 parsecs). It contains the bright young Trapezium Cluster, which appears as an irregular whitish area just above the center of the Hubble image on this page. |
Photograph of Orion in visible light by Wei-Hao Wang. The Orion Nebula appears as a pink and white cloud below the center of the image. Image credit NASA/courtesy of nasaimages.org |
Infrared image of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, with the brightest stars of Orion indicated in green. Image courtesy IRAS/Thomas Preibisch |
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All text copyright Raymond Harris 2006-2009. Image credits appear in the accompanying captions. |