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Credit & Copyright: Abraham Jones
Explanation:
Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like
The Great Nebula in Orion.
Visible as a faint celestial smudge
to the naked-eye,
the nearest large star-forming region sprawls across
this sharp telescopic image,
recorded on a cold January night in dark skies
from West Virginia, planet Earth.
Also known as
M42,
the Orion Nebula's glowing gas surrounds
hot,
young stars.
About 40 light-years across, it lies at the edge of an immense interstellar
molecular cloud
only 1,500 light-years away
within the same spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy as the Sun.
Along with dusty bluish reflection nebula
NGC 1977 and friends
near the top of the frame,
the eye-catching nebulae represent only a
small fraction of our
galactic neighborhood's
wealth of star-forming material.
Within the well-studied stellar nursery,
astronomers have also identified
what appear to be numerous
infant solar systems.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: M 42 - Orion Nebula
Publications with words: M 42 - Orion Nebula
See also: