Gas Plume Near the Edge of the Orion Nebula: A NASA Hubble Space Telescope "true color" mosaic image of a small portion of the Orion  Nebula, taken the Wide Field and Planetary Camera (in wide field mode). Hubble shows a wealth of detail never seen before in the nebula. New features include:  elongated objects oriented on the brightest stars in this region (which are located just off the  edge of the picture); rapidly expanding plumes of material around young stars; and  protoplanetary disks. This color photograph is a composite of separate images taken at the wavelengths of three  abundant elements in the nebula: Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. The images were taken  August 13 and 14, 1991. The image is 1.29 light-years across.

Name: M 42, Messier 42, NGC 1976, Orion Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star Formation
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Orion
Distance: 1400 light years
Release date: 16 December 1992, 06:00
Credit: C.R. O'Dell (Rice University), and NASA

Gas Plume From a Newborn Star: A NASA Hubble Space Telescope picture of a hypersonic shock wave (lower right) of material moving at 148,000 miles per hour in  the Orion Nebula, a star-forming region 1,500 light-years away. Studies of similar objects infer that such highly supersonic shock waves are formed by a beam of material coming out of newly  formed stars. The plume is only 1,500 years old. The image is 112 light-year across. This color photograph is a composite of separate images taken at the wavelengths of the two abundant elements in the nebula:  Hydrogen and Oxygen. The images were taken with HST's Wide Field and Planetary Camera (in wide field mode), on August 13 and  14, 1991.

Name: M 42, Messier 42, NGC 1976, Orion Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star Formation
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Orion
Distance: 1400 light years
Release date: 16 December 1992, 06:00
Credit: C.R. O'Dell (Rice University), and NASA

Protoplanetary Disks in the Orion Nebula: A NASA Hubble Space Telescope picture of three protoplanetary disks,  called "proplyds" in the Orion Nebula, a star-forming region  1,500  light-years away. Each proplyd appears as thick disk with a hole in the middle where  the cool star is located. Radiation from nearby hot stars "boils off"   material from the disk's surface. This material is then blown back into a  comet-like tail by a stellar "wind" of radiation and subatomic   particles streaming from the hot stars. This material has only recently become illuminated by the hottest star of the Orion Nebula. Each picture is only 12.07 light-days across. Each picture element  (pixel) is 50 astronomical units, or fifty times the average distance   from the Earth to the Sun. This color photograph is a composite of separate images taken at the  wavelengths of the two abundant elements in the nebula:  Hydrogen and  Oxygen, and the red image was made to isolate the star's image. The  images were taken with HST's Wide Field and  Planetary Camera (in wide  field mode), on August 13 and 14, 1991.

Name: M 42, Messier 42, NGC 1976, Orion Proplyd
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star Formation
Category: Nebulae
Distance: 1400 light years
Release date: 16 December 1992, 06:00
Credit: C.R. O'Dell (Rice University), and NASA

The Stunning Colors of the Orion Nebula: A NASA Hubble Space Telescope "true color" mosaic image of a small portion of the Orion  Nebula, taken the Wide Field and Planetary Camera. This color photograph is a composite of separate images taken at the wavelengths of three  abundant elements in the nebula: Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. The images were taken  August 13 and 14, 1991.

Name: M 42, Messier 42, NGC 1976, Orion Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star Formation
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Orion
Distance: 1400 light years
Release date: 16 December 1992, 06:00
Credit: C.R. O'Dell (Rice University), and NASA

Cygnus Loop: This is an image of a small portion of the Cygnus Loop supernova  remnant, taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope on April 24,  1991. The Cygnus Loop marks the edge of a bubble-like, expanding blast  wave from a colossal stellar explosion which occurred about 15,000 years  ago.

Name: Cygnus Loop, NGC 6960, SNR 074.0-08.5
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Supernova Remnant
Category: Nebulae
Distance: 1500 light years
Release date: 6 January 1993, 06:00
Credit: J.J. Hester (Arizona State University), and NASA

A double Nucleus in an active galaxy: A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the core of the Seyfert galaxy Markarian 315 reveals two nuclei located approximately 6,000light-years apart. (Seyfert galaxies are a class of spiral galaxy with extremely bright nuclei that are thought to be powered by massive black holes accreting matter.) The brighter member of the pair is the energetic core of the galaxy which probably contains a black hole. The fainter companion is considered to be the core of a galaxy in the process of merging with Markarian 315.

Name: Markarian 315
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Activity : AGN : Seyfert
Category: Quasars and Black Holes
Distance: 550 million light years
Release date: 7 January 1993, 06:00
Credit: J. MacKenty (STScl), and NASA/ESA.

HST reveals growth processes of young star: A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of a huge, complex cloud of gas heated by shock waves from jets of gas produced by the birth of a new star. Called Herbig-Haro object #2 (HH-2) the cloud is a visible manifestation of physical processes that occur early in the evolution of a star. The photograph was produced from three images obtained with the Wide Field/Planetary Camera (WFIPC). Exposures were taken through different filters to examine light emitted by HH-2 in emission lines of ionized oxygen (coded blue), hydrogen (coded green), and sulfur (coded red). The blue spots represent the highest temperature gas. The red regions identify cooler gas. In the brightest portions of the object, emissions from all three components combine to produce white features.

Name: HH 2
Type: Milky Way : Star : Evolutionary Stage : Young Stellar ObjectMilky Way : Nebula : Type : Jet
Category: Stars
Release date: 14 April 1993, 06:00
Credit: Richard Schwartz (Univ. of Missouri, St. Louis), Martin Cohen (Univ. of California, Berkeley), Burton Jones (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz), Karl-Heinz Bohm (Univ. of Washington), John Raymond and Lee Hartmann (HarvardSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Reinhard Mundt (Max-Planck-lnstitut fur Astronomle), Michael Dopita (Mt. Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories), and Angie Schultz (Washington Univ. at St. Louis/Univ. of Missouri at St. Louis).