orion nebula | EarthSky

Crisply outlined swirls of 3 glowing, multicolored gas clouds with stars embedded in them.

The Orion Nebula (M42) is a starry nursery

You can see the Orion Nebula as a fuzzy spot in the sky using just your eyes. It's really a vast cloud in space where new stars are forming. Learn more.

2 small bright dots close to each other in center of image, with larger bright dot to the upper left.

Mystery in the Orion Nebula: Pairs of rogue planets?

The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered something unexpected in the Orion Nebula: pairs of unusual planet-like 'binary objects' drifting freely in space.

A composite made of 3 images of molecular clouds in space.

Life’s building blocks found in Orion Nebula

Scientists have found carbon compounds - life's building blocks - in a planet-forming disk, encircling a star in the famous Orion Nebula.

Fly through the Orion Nebula

Take 3 minutes to fly through the spectacular Orion Nebula, in this new 3D visualization from NASA.

Hubble Telescope finds substellar objects in Orion Nebula

Yes, the Orion Nebula is a star factory, but a new deep survey has revealed 17 brown dwarf companions to red dwarf stars, a brown dwarf pair, a brown dwarf with a planetary companion plus ... 3 giant planets.

A 3D journey through the Orion Nebula

Astronomers and visualization specialists at NASA have just released this unprecedented, 3-dimensional, fly-through view of the Orion Nebula, a nearby star-forming region.

New mosaic of Orion Nebula

The Orion Nebula - 1,400 light-years away- is the closest star formation region to Earth. This image is the latest in the Hubble Space Telescope's collection.

Orion Nebula and molecular gas clouds

Image of the Orion Nebula, shot on a cold night in Georgia, by Dave Woolsteen.

Deepest-yet look into Orion Nebula

Peering deeper into the Orion Nebula than ever before, astronomers have found a plethora of low-mass objects, some isolated "planets" and some brown dwarfs.

A black hole in the Orion Nebula?

An international team of astrophysicists says the famous Orion Nebula has a black hole at its heart, whose mass is some 200 times the mass of our sun.

Orion Nebula in beautiful new image

Igor Chekalin of Russia selected the data used for this ethereal image of the Orion Nebula, as part of the Hidden Treasures 2010 competition of the European Southern Observatory.

Orion Nebula has a new estimated distance

Here's news about the most famous stellar nursery of all, the Orion Nebula. Previously, the distance to the Orion Nebula was estimated at about 1,500 or 1,600 light-years. But the Orion Nebula is actually closer than that by about 200 light-years, according to Rob Jeffries at Keele University in England.

The Orion Nebula (M42) is a starry nursery

Mystery in the Orion Nebula: Pairs of rogue planets?