The
Orion Nebula (also known as
Messier 42,
M42, or
NGC 1976) is a
diffuse nebula situated in the
Milky Way, being south of
Orion's Belt in the
constellation of Orion,
[b] and is known as the middle "star" in the "sword" of Orion. It is one of the brightest
nebulae and is visible to the
naked eye in the night sky with apparent magnitude 4.0. It is 1,344 ± 20
light-years (412.1 ± 6.1
pc) away
[3][6] and is the closest region of massive
star formation to
Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light-years across (so its apparent size from Earth is approximately 1 degree). It has a mass of about 2,000 times that of the
Sun. Older texts frequently refer to the Orion Nebula as the
Great Nebula in Orion or the
Great Orion Nebula.
[7]The Orion Nebula is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky and is among the most intensely studied celestial features.
[8] The nebula has revealed much about the process of how
stars and
planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed
protoplanetary disks and
brown dwarfs within the nebula, intense and
turbulent motions of the gas, and the
photo-ionizing effects of massive nearby stars in the nebula.
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