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A Protoplanetary Disk in the Orion Nebula

A Protoplanetary Disk in the Orion Nebula
A Hubble Space Telescope view of a very young star (between 300,000 and a million years of age) surrounded by material left over from the star's formation. The cool, reddish star is about one fifth the mass of our Sun. The dark disk, seen in silhouette against the background of the Orion Nebula, is possibly a protoplanetary disk from which planets will form. The disk contains at least seven times the material as our Earth. The disk is 56 billion miles across (90 billion kilometers), or 7.5 times the diameter of our Solar System. The Orion Nebula starbirth region is 1,500 light-years away, in the direction of the constellation Orion the Hunter. The image was taken on 29 December 1993 with the HST's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, WFPC2, in PC mode.

About the Object

  • R.A. Position
    R.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.
    05h 35m 17.29s
  • Dec. Position
    Dec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.
    -5° 23' 27.99"
  • Object Name
    Object NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
    Orion Nebula, M42, NGC 1976
  • Release Date
    June 13, 1994
  • Science Release
    Hubble Confirms Abundance of Protoplanetary Disks around Newborn Stars
    Read the release
  • Credit
    Credit: C.R. O'Dell/Rice University; NASA

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Last Updated
Mar 28, 2025
Contact
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Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

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