Gas Plume Near the Edge of the Orion Nebula

A NASA Hubble Space Telescope "true color" mosaic image of a small portion of the Orion Nebula, taken the Wide Field and Planetary Camera (in wide field mode).

Hubble shows a wealth of detail never seen before in the nebula. New features include: elongated objects oriented on the brightest stars in this region (which are located just off the edge of the picture); rapidly expanding plumes of material around young stars; and protoplanetary disks.

This color photograph is a composite of separate images taken at the wavelengths of three abundant elements in the nebula: Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. The images were taken August 13 and 14, 1991.

The image is 1.29 light-years across.