Figure 1-7: R I V U X G
The Orion Nebula—Birthplace of Stars This beautiful nebula is a stellar “nursery” where stars are formed out of the nebula’s gas. Intense ultraviolet light from newborn stars excites the surrounding gas and causes it to glow. Many of the stars embedded in this nebula are less than a million years old, a brief interval in the lifetime of a typical star. The Orion Nebula is some 1500 light-years from Earth and is about 30 light-years across.
The Orion Nebula—Birthplace of Stars This beautiful nebula is a stellar “nursery” where stars are formed out of the nebula’s gas. Intense ultraviolet light from newborn stars excites the surrounding gas and causes it to glow. Many of the stars embedded in this nebula are less than a million years old, a brief interval in the lifetime of a typical star. The Orion Nebula is some 1500 light-years from Earth and is about 30 light-years across.
(NASA, ESA, M. Robberto/STScI/ESA, and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team)