Orion nebula centre - Trapeze - Orion nebula center - Mosaic of images obtained by...

Orion nebula centre - Trapeze - Orion nebula center - Mosaic of images obtained by the space telescope in 1994 and 1995 showing the center of Orion nebula, the region around the Trapeze, a cluster of 4 very young and massive stars that make this nebula shine. The picture shows a churning turbulent star factory set within a maelstrom of flowing, luminescent gas. Although this 2.5 light - years wide view is still a small portion of the entire Orion nebula, it includes almost all of the light from the bright glowing clouds of gas and a star cluster associated with the nebula. Hubble reveals details as small as 4.1 billion miles across. Hubble Space Telescope observing time was devoted to making this panorama because the nebula is a vast laboratory for studying the processes which gave birth to our own Sun and solar system 4.5 billion years ago. Gas are illuminated and heated by a torrent of energetic ultraviolet light from its four hottest and most massive stars, called the Trapezium, which lie near the center of the image. In addition to the Trapezium, this stellar cavern contains 700 hundred other young stars at various stages of formation. High - speed jets of hot gas spewed by some of the infant stars send supersonic shock waves tearing into the nebula at 100,000 miles per hour. These shock waves appear as thin curved loops, sometimes with bright knots on their end (the brightest examples are near the bright star at the lower left). The mosaic reveals at least 153 glowing protoplanetary disks (first discovered with the Hubble in 1992, and dubbed “” proplyds”) that are believed to be embryonic solar systems that will eventually form planets. (Our solar system has long been considered the relic of just such a disk that formed around the newborn Sun). The abundance of such objects in the Orion nebula strengthens the argument that planet formation is a common occurrence in the universe. The proplyds that are closest to the Trapezium stars (image c