                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2021 June 29

                        Orion Nebula: The Hubble View
    Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Legacy Archive; Processing: Francisco
                            Javier Pobes Serrano

   Explanation: Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion
   Nebula. Also known as M42, the nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young
   stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1,500
   light-years away. The Orion Nebula offers one of the best opportunities
   to study how stars are born partly because it is the nearest large
   star-forming region, but also because the nebula's energetic stars have
   blown away obscuring gas and dust clouds that would otherwise block our
   view - providing an intimate look at a range of ongoing stages of
   starbirth and evolution. The featured image of the Orion Nebula is
   among the sharpest ever, constructed using data from the Hubble Space
   Telescope. The entire Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is
   located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

                       Tomorrow's picture: first stars
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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