Home › Universe › Orion Nebula (M42)
Star-forming region
Orion Nebula (M42)
A gigantic cloud of gas in which new stars are forming right now – visible to the naked eye as a misty patch in Orion's sword.
Key figures
- Distance
- 1,344 light-years
- Diameter
- about 24 light-years
- Young stars inside
- over 3,000
- Constellation
- Orion (in the “sword”)
Interesting facts
- The nearest large “nursery” for stars – visible to the naked eye in winter as a misty patch below Orion's Belt.
- Hubble discovered more than 150 young stars with dusty discs inside it – planetary systems that are forming right now.
Why does it glow?
Four very hot young stars in the middle, the “Trapezium”, shine so strongly that they make the surrounding gas glow – much like a fluorescent tube.
How to find Orion Nebula in the sky
Below the three stars of Orion's Belt hangs a short row of fainter stars – the Sword. The middle “star” in it looks fuzzy: that is the nebula. In binoculars, a grey veil. Best from December to February, in the south in the evening.
Visible with: the naked eye. More under Watching the sky.
Where is it?
Orion Nebula (M42) belongs to the “The Milky Way” level of the Cosmic Zoom (field of view about 130,000 light-years). Our galaxy: a spiral of 100 to 400 billion stars. The Sun lies in the Orion Arm, 26,000 light-years from the centre. All the neighbouring stars from the previous level are inside the tiny dot at “Sun”.
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