This mosaic of fifteen separate photographs shows an area 2.5 light-years wide, a small portion of the entire Orion nebula. Over 700 young stars are in this region, and glowing protoplanetary disks surround 153 of them. This natural laboratory for studying star formation is located a mere 1,500 light years from us. Closer views of individual stars in the early stages of their formation show that disks composed of dust and gas surround many of the fledgling stars. These often obscure a young star, but it can still illuminate regions of in-falling dust above the disk.
Many stars shoot out powerful jets of gas.
These jets originate as dust and gas move in towards the star and are deflected by the magnetic fields of the star and the surrounding disk. The star formation process is very dynamic, as shown dramatically by recent time-lapse images of young stars located only about 450 light years from Earth. These Hubble Space Telescope images show stars surrounded by dusty disks. You cannot see the star in either photograph, though their light illuminates the surrounding nebula. The dark band is the dark disk surrounding it, which we see edge-on.