🌫️ Nebula
Orion Nebula
The closest big star nursery, visible without a telescope.
- Distance
- 1,300 light-years away
- Size
- 24 light-years across
Did you know?
- On a dark night you can see it as a fuzzy patch in Orion’s sword.
Find it in the sky
The life of a starA step in a star’s life: born in a cloud
Compare Orion Nebula with the Milky WaySide by side, to scale, in the app
More NASA photos of Orion NebulaStraight from NASA’s image library, in the app
Explore more
All of deep space
The Sun
Our star, an ordinary one that keeps everything here alive.
Betelgeuse
A red supergiant in Orion that will one day explode.
Alpha Centauri
The closest star system to the Sun.
Eta Carinae
A pair of giant stars, one of them about 90 times heavier than the Sun.
Mira
A red giant star racing through space with a tail like a comet.
Zeta Ophiuchi
A runaway star, flung out when its partner exploded.