Proplyd in the Orion Nebula
Planet formation is a hazardous process. These four snapshots, taken by NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, show dust disks around embryonic stars in the Orion Nebula being 'blowtorched' by a blistering flood of ultraviolet radiation from the region's brightest star. Within these disks are the seeds of planets. The doomed systems look like hapless comets, with wayward tails of gas boiling off the withering, pancake-shaped disks.
Credit:About the Image
About the Object
| Name: | M 42, Messier 42, NGC 1976, Orion Proplyd |
| Type: | Milky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Dark : Proplyd |
| Distance: | 1400 light years |
| Category: | Stars |
Colours & filters
| Band | Telescope |
|---|---|
| Optical |
Hubble Space Telescope
WFPC2 |