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Birthday · July 6, 2020

M43: Dust, Gas, and Stars in the Orion Nebula

July 6, 2020

The Earth has carried you around the Sun again, steady as ever, while the stars kept their patient watch.

M43: Dust, Gas, and Stars in the Orion Nebula

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APOD published July 6, 2020. Credit: Bryan Goff. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

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M43: Dust, Gas, and Stars in the Orion Nebula

Original APOD · July 6, 2020

Unspeakable beauty and unimaginable bedlam can be found together in the Orion Nebula Arguably the most famous of all astronomy nebulas, the Great Nebula in Orion is an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the featured deep image shown in assigned colors, the part of the nebula's center known as M43 is shown as taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. The entire Orion Nebula, including both M42 and M43 spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

Image credit: Bryan Goff

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