Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/E.Feigelson & K.Getman et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/M. Robberto et al.

The Orion Nebula is one of the closest

star formation regions from Earth at a

distance of 1,500 light years. A favorite

for amateur astronomers and casual sky

watchers, Orion is seen as never before

in this composite image created from

Chandra and Hubble data. The wispy filaments

seen by Hubble (pink and purple)

are clouds of gas and dust that

provide the material used as fuel by

young stars. The bright point-like

sources (blue and orange) are newly

formed stars captured in X-ray light by

Chandra. These fledgling stars are seen

to flare in their X-ray intensity, which

suggests that our Sun had many violent

and energetic outbursts when it was

much younger.

Provider: Chandra X-ray Observatory

Image Source: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/orion/

Curator: Chandra X-ray Observatory, Cambridge, MA, USA

Image Use Policy: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/image_use.html