Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun astronomy A diffuse nebula visible in the night sky below Orion's Belt; it is approximately 40 light years across. It is one of the brightest nebulae visible to the naked eye and is the closest region of stellar formation to Earth.

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Examples

  • More recently the Hubble Space Telescope has imaged clearly a stellar nursery called the Orion Nebula and discovered that about 50% of the stars have disks of gas around them that could be solar systems in the making [Figure 7: Hubble Telescope images of protoplanetary nebulae].

    Our Next Century in Space 1995

  • Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, which is mounted into the side of a modified 747 aircraft, recently used infrared detectors to peer into a region of the sky called the Orion Nebula.

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2012

  • The Orion Nebula is the primary example of a stellar nursery where new stars are being born.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2009

  • The Orion Nebula is the primary example of a stellar nursery where new stars are being born.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2009

  • Binoculars or small telescopes reveal the beautiful Orion Nebula, which is otherwise known as M42, if you have a dark-enough sky.

    Earth & Sky Podcast 2009

  • Back then he would go into a trance when Jenny gave voice to the elegant geometry of the constellations, to the sound of words like Trapezium, the star cluster deep inside the Orion Nebula, the dim edge of the sword falling below The Hunter's Belt.

    Traces in the Winter Sky Doug Bond 2011

  • The sun and the planets most likely formed from a whirling disk of dust and gas inside a nebula filled with these building blocks of solar systems, just like the thousands of proto-solar systems that astronomers observe today in the nearby Orion Nebula, a stellar nursery 1,340 light-years away.

    Dwarf planets Pluto, Eris battle for a spot in a vast universe 2011

  • They found four discrete star-forming regions within the galaxy, and each region was more than 100 times brighter than star-forming regions in the Milky Way, such as the Orion Nebula, and estimate that the observed galaxy is producing stars at a rate equivalent to 250 suns per year.

    Galaxies in Early Universe Experienced "Growth Spurt" | Universe Today 2010

  • Without the reddish sulfer clouds and semi-dish shape I'm used to seeing, I would have never guessed this is the Orion Nebula.

    New VISTA of Orion | Universe Today 2010

  • The trip to the Orion Nebula to see the "tadpoles" gives a great sense of scale and produced more than a few "WOW!"

    Review: Hubble 3-D IMAX | Universe Today 2010

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