The Orion Nebula is one of the brightest nebulae in the sky. It’s located in the Sword of Orion, near Orion’s Belt. The nebula is about 1400 light years from Earth, so the image depicted here is from light that was emitted around 600 AD. The Orion Nebula was the first deep sky object to be photographed, by Henry Draper in 1880. This marked the beginning of astrophotography. A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust and gases such as hydrogen and oxygen. Interstellar dust and gases are pulled together to form the cloud we see. As these clouds condense, new stars can be formed. The red color we see in the Orion Nebula is due to ionized hydrogen gas, while the yellow-green color is emitted by ionized oxygen gas. The gases are ionized by the energy of nearby stars.
