A Star is Born

This ground-based image offers a wide view of the entire Orion cloud complex, the closest major star-forming region to Earth. The red material is hydrogen gas ionized and heated by ultraviolet radiation from massive stars in Orion. 

The stars are forming in clouds of cold hydrogen gas that are either invisible or appear as dark regions in this image. The crescent shape is called Barnard's Loop and partly wraps around the winter constellation figure of Orion the Hunter. 

The hunter's belt is the diagonal chain of three stars at image center. His feet are the bright stars Saiph (bottom left) and Rigel (bottom right). This landscape encompasses tens of thousands of newly forming stars bursting to life. Many are still encased in their natal cocoons of gas and dust and only seen in infrared light. The undulating line of yellow dots, beginning at lower left, is a superimposed image of 304 nascent stars taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

You Might Also Like :