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Year 3: M42 Gas Plume & Proplyds

This Hubble Space Telescope picture shows a hypersonic shock wave (lower right) of material moving at 148,000 miles per hour in the Orion Nebula, a star-forming region 1,500 light-years away.

 

Studies of similar objects infer that such highly supersonic shock waves are formed by a beam of material coming out of newly formed stars. The plume is only 1,500 years old. The image is 112 light-year across.

 

This color photograph is a composite of separate images taken at the wavelengths of the two abundant elements in the nebula: Hydrogen and Oxygen.

 

Credit: C.R. O'Dell (Rice University), and NASA

 

For more information, visit: science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/gas-plume-from-a-newborn-st...

 

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Uploaded on February 28, 2023
Taken on December 16, 1992