On winter evenings, Orion is one of the easiest star patterns to find in the sky. Its identifying feature is a row of three stars which make up the belt of the legendary hunter, Orion. Above the ...

The Orion constellation. The main stars of this constellation are connected by straight blue lines and some of them are labelled by their name. The Orion Nebula (M 42) is identified by the red square.

Situated 1,300 light-years away beneath the three stars of Orion’s Belt, the nebula is a hotspot for star formation, where young protostars emerge from dense clouds of gas and dust.