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Easily visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch in the middle of Orion's sword.
What we call the Orion Nebula is just the central part of a larger cloud
that stretches across several hundred light years.
Four bright stars in a parallelogram near the nebula's center form the Trapezium.
These hot young stars heat up the surrounding gas clouds, causing the nebula to emit light.
The Orion Nebula is full of hot, bright blue stars and is an area of active star formation.
The Hubble Space Telescope has found protoplanetary disks of
gas and dust around some of these stars.
These disks are about twice the size of our solar system,
and may eventually condense to form extrasolar planets.
M42 is a veritable catalog of different object types,
including multiple stars and reflection plus emission nebulosity.
Try to view the Great Orion Nebula on every possible occasion with any type of optical instrument
as well as with the naked eye.
The wealth of detail visible in this nebula is simply outstanding.
Intricate wisps, shapes and the contrast between brighter and darker regions never ceases to amaze.
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