The Great Orion Nebula

Look at the constellation Orion on a clear night and find the three belt stars. Below them, in what appears to be the sword, there’s a faint fuzzy patch. That patch is the Orion Nebula — 1,344 light-years away, 24 light-years across, and one of the most active stellar nurseries in our region of the galaxy. Stars are being born inside it right now. The four bright stars at its core — the Trapezium — are less than a million years old, and their fierce ultraviolet radiation is ionizing the surrounding gas, creating the rose-colored glow visible even to the naked eye.