Curtains of dust in M42
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A view into the center of the Great Orion Nebula M42. These swirling curtains of dust and ionized hydrogen are several light years long, and are reflecting the intense light from newborn stars in the nebulas center towards the upper right corner.
This huge star formation region is located about 1630 ly away in the constellation of Orion. In the center of the nebula is the many luminous newborn stars lighting up the surrounding gas cloud that they condensated from. M42 is a part of the big Orion Molecular Cloud - a huge clump of very cold gas that has a total mass of about 2000 times the mass of the Sun. The gas from this cloud slowly collapses due to gravity and stars are formed. Whenever a bright new star is formed, its strong light evaporates the opaque gaseous surroundings it formed from, and thus allowing us to see it. | |||||||||||||||
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