Hubble Space Telescope captures stunning close-up of Orion Nebula

 The Hubble telescope has taken a new magical image of the Orion Nebula.

One of the most beautiful and spectacular parts of the night sky is the Orion constellation. The Orion Nebula is one of the Milky Way's most studied and photographed objects and a nest of material where young stars are being formed. Alnitak, Saif, and Rigel are floating in a large, dense cloud of interstellar dust and gas between the stars.

“This celestial cloudscape captured the colorful region surrounding the Herbig-Haro object HH 505,” read the European Space Agency's (ESA) official website.

Herbig–Haro (HH) objects are bright patches of nebulosity associated with newborn stars.

The magnificent cloud is a valuable laboratory for studying star formation because of its close vicinity (1,344 light-years from the Sun). Its size and proximity, which spans 24 light-years, make it visible to the naked eyes, reported ScienceAlert on Sunday.

“This observation was also part of a spellbinding Hubble mosaic of the Orion Nebula, which combined 520 ACS images in five different colors to create the sharpest view ever taken of the region,” ESA documented.

 

“The Orion Nebula is awash in intense ultraviolet radiation from bright young stars.”

 

Hubble's new image of the Orion Nebula, and HH 505. Source :ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Bally, M. H. Özsaraç

 

Hubble can clearly see the shockwaves created by the outflows, but this radiation also draws attention to the slower-moving stellar material currents. This enables astronomers to see jets and outflows up close and understand their structures.

Reference:

European Space Agency