                        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.

                                2023 March 10

                          Orion and the Running Man
                   Image 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.

                        Tomorrow's picture: 3D Bennu
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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