Believed to be the cosmic fire of creation by the Maya of Mesoamerica, M42 blazes brightly in the constellation Orion. Popularly called the Orion Nebula, this stellar nursery has been known to many different cultures throughout human history. The nebula is only 1,500 light-years away, making it the closest large star-forming region to Earth making it relatively bright. Because of its brightness and prominent location just below Orion’s belt, M42 can be spotted with the naked eye, while offering an excellent peek at stellar birth for those with telescopes. It is best observed during January. The Mayan culture’s likening of the Orion Nebula to a cosmic fire of creation is very apt. The nebula is an enormous cloud of dust and gas where vast numbers of new stars are being forged. Its bright, central region is the home of four massive, young stars that shape the nebula. The four hefty stars are called the Trapezium because they are arranged in a trapezoidal pattern. Ultraviolet light unleashed by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of hundreds of smaller stars.
The Rosette Nebula is a cloud of dust containing enough gas and dust to make about 10,000 stars like our Sun. In the centre of the nebula, and off to the right hand side of this image, is a cluster of hot, bright young stars. These are warming up the surrounding gas and dust, making it appear bluer. The small, bright white regions are cocoons of dust in which huge stars are currently being born. These “protostars”, each one of which will probably become a star up to ten times more massive than the Sun, are heating up the surrounding gas and dust and making it clow brighter. The smaller, redder dots on the left side and near the centre of the image also contain protostars, but these are smaller, and will go on to form stars much like our Sun. Just as the centre of the nebula contains bright young stars, in a few tens or hundreds of millions of years these stars will have died, but the protostars will have evolved into fully-fledged stars in their own right. In this way, the star formation will move outwards through the nebula.
