Orion is the grand constellation that dominates the southern part of the sky. The Orion Nebula is considered an emission luminous nebula, which is located below the so-called "belt" of this constellation. It is in this "belt" that you can easily find Orion in the sky. It consists of three blue and white stars: Mintaka, Alnil, Alnitak. All of them are located on the same line and at equal angular distances from each other. This constellation is also remarkable in that it contains many giant bright stars. One Orion star seems a little blurry. When observing it through a telescope, a foggy spot is clearly visible. This is what is called the "Great Orion Nebula", which is a giant cloud of hot, luminous gas.
The size of this gas cloud can be judged by the fact that it would make 10 thousand stars such as the Sun. The Orion Nebula seems so small only because it is 1340 light-years from Earth . Glowing gas surrounds several hot young stars at the edge of a giant molecular interstellar cloud. The entire cloud system of this nebula, including the Horsehead Nebula, will be scattered throughout the universe for 100 thousand years.
Astronomers consider the area around the constellation Orion to be the most beautiful in the sky. This diffuse nebula is the brightest. Its surface, which extends for almost 80x60 angular minutes, is four times the area of the full moon and due to the brightness of about 4 magnitudes (magnitude is an indicator that characterizes the illumination created by a celestial object) has good visibility in the night sky. Location at the celestial equator allows you to see it almost anywhere in the world. This space object has about 30 light years across. The telescope shows that in its northern part passes a darkened strip of dust, which separates the northeastern part of the nebula from its main part.
The Orion Nebula was first described in detail in 1656 by H. Huygens, although some of its discovery is erroneously attributed to the German scientist I. Cisat. Some remain supporters of the version that it was discovered by the French astronomer NK. Fabry de Peiresc.
Thanks to the Hubble orbital telescope, NASA scientists discovered the protoplanetary disk, which is located in the central region of the nebula under the name "Trapezium". This area got its name thanks to 4 massive stars, which are located in the shape of a trapezoid. The nebula is an active neighborhood of very young stars, hot gas and dust. Powerful sources of blue glow in the center of it are 4 of the brightest stars of Trapeze. Such a bright glow gives reflection of their own light from cosmic dust and radiation from ionized gas. Dark brown dust fibers cover a large area of the nebula. In the lower part of the nebula there are several substellar objects - brown dwarfs.
This nebula has an extremely bright part in the center. Her so-called wings are characterized by rapidly dying brightness. At the point of convergence of the wings, a dark dip is observed, which, due to its characteristic pattern, is called the "Fish mouth". In front of the wings on clear nights you can see a straight strip called the “Sword”. The western, dull part of the Orion Nebula is called the Sail.
The Orion Nebula is located inside our Galaxy at a distance of 350 pc from the Sun. Although the laboratory vacuum is millions of times denser than a given nebula, its total mass is huge.
This space formation has been observed by earthlings for thousands of years. Many scholars speak of discovered facts confirming that the Mayan people, based on the stars of this nebula, made up the Mayan calendar known throughout the world.