The Orion Nebula's biggest stars: Packed into the centre of this region are bright lights of the Trapezium stars, the four heftiest stars in the Orion Nebula. Ultraviolet light unleashed by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of hundreds of smaller stars. The dark speck near the bottom, right of the image is a silhouette of an edge-on disk encircling a young star. Another whitish-looking disk is visible near the bottom, left, just above the two bright stars. This disk is encased in a bubble of gas and dust.

Name: Messier 42, Messier 43, Orion Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star FormationMilky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Emission : H II Region
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Orion
Distance: 1400 light years
Release date: 11 January 2006, 16:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto ( Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

Over the edge: This dark red column shows an illuminated edge of the cavity wall.

Name: Messier 42, Messier 43, Orion Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star FormationMilky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Emission : H II Region
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Orion
Distance: 1400 light years
Release date: 11 January 2006, 16:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto ( Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

Failing stars: The faint red stars in this close-up image are the myriad brown dwarfs that Hubble spied for the first time in the Orion Nebula in visible light. Sometimes called "failed stars", brown dwarfs are cool objects that are too small to be ordinary stars because they cannot sustain nuclear fusion in their cores the way our Sun does.

Name: Messier 42, Messier 43, Orion Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star FormationMilky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Emission : H II Region
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Orion
Distance: 1400 light years
Release date: 11 January 2006, 16:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto ( Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

Sculpting the landscape: This glowing region reveals arcs and bubbles formed when stellar winds - streams of charged particles ejected by the Trapezium stars - collide with material.

Name: Messier 42, Messier 43, Orion Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star FormationMilky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Emission : H II Region
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Orion
Distance: 1400 light years
Release date: 11 January 2006, 16:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto ( Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

Pillars of gas: These dense, dark pillars of dust and gas are resisting erosion from intense ultraviolet light released by the Orion Nebula's biggest stars.

Name: Messier 42, Messier 43, Orion Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Reflection
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Orion
Distance: 1400 light years
Release date: 11 January 2006, 16:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto ( Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

Largest ever galaxy portrait - stunning HD image of Pinwheel Galaxy: This new Hubble image reveals the gigantic Pinwheel galaxy, one of the best known examples of "grand design spirals", and its supergiant star-forming regions in unprecedented detail. The image is the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy ever taken with Hubble.

Name: Messier 101, Pinwheel Galaxy
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Ursa Major
Distance: 23 million light years
Release date: 28 February 2006, 12:00
Credit: Image: European Space Agency & NASA Acknowledgements: Project Investigators for the original Hubble data: K.D. Kuntz (GSFC), F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (JPL), J. Mould (NOAO), and Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana) Image processing: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble) CFHT image: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/J.-C. Cuillandre/Coelum NOAO image: George Jacoby, Bruce Bohannan, Mark Hanna/NOAO/AURA/NSF

Largest ever galaxy portrait - stunning HD image of Pinwheel Galaxy: This new Hubble image reveals the gigantic Pinwheel galaxy, one of the best known examples of "grand design spirals", and its supergiant star-forming regions in unprecedented detail. The image is the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy ever taken with Hubble.

Name: Messier 101, Pinwheel Galaxy
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Ursa Major
Distance: 23 million light years
Release date: 28 February 2006, 12:00
Credit: Image: European Space Agency & NASA Acknowledgements: Project Investigators for the original Hubble data: K.D. Kuntz (GSFC), F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (JPL), J. Mould (NOAO), and Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana) Image processing: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble) CFHT image: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/J.-C. Cuillandre/Coelum NOAO image: George Jacoby, Bruce Bohannan, Mark Hanna/NOAO/AURA/NSF

Largest ever galaxy portrait - stunning HD image of Pinwheel Galaxy: This new Hubble image reveals the gigantic Pinwheel galaxy, one of the best known examples of "grand design spirals", and its supergiant star-forming regions in unprecedented detail. The image is the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy ever taken with Hubble.

Name: Messier 101, Pinwheel Galaxy
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Ursa Major
Distance: 23 million light years
Release date: 28 February 2006, 12:00
Credit: Image: European Space Agency & NASA Acknowledgements: Project Investigators for the original Hubble data: K.D. Kuntz (GSFC), F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (JPL), J. Mould (NOAO), and Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana) Image processing: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble) CFHT image: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/J.-C. Cuillandre/Coelum NOAO image: George Jacoby, Bruce Bohannan, Mark Hanna/NOAO/AURA/NSF

Largest ever galaxy portrait - stunning HD image of Pinwheel Galaxy: This new Hubble image reveals the gigantic Pinwheel galaxy, one of the best known examples of "grand design spirals", and its supergiant star-forming regions in unprecedented detail. The image is the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy ever taken with Hubble.

Name: Messier 101, Pinwheel Galaxy
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Ursa Major
Distance: 23 million light years
Release date: 28 February 2006, 12:00
Credit: Image: European Space Agency & NASA Acknowledgements: Project Investigators for the original Hubble data: K.D. Kuntz (GSFC), F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (JPL), J. Mould (NOAO), and Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana) Image processing: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble) CFHT image: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/J.-C. Cuillandre/Coelum NOAO image: George Jacoby, Bruce Bohannan, Mark Hanna/NOAO/AURA/NSF