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The Orion nebula is a stellar nursery, filled with young stars and gas. 1,500 light years away, it is the closest region of its type to the Earth. Orion is an emission nebula, meaning that it is many light years across and very large in comparison to other types of nebulae. Located in the middle of Orion the Hunter's sword, the Orion nebula is actually part of a much larger cloud of gas and dust that covers a majority of the Orion constellation. The giant gas cloud is illuminated by the young hot stars it produces. Many of the stars that appear fainter are encapsulated by disks of gas and dust. The diagonal length of the region is roughly 1.6 light years. On a clear winter night outside the Chicago area, you can see with your naked eye the Orion Nebula as a fuzzy wisp in Orion's sword. This image shows the central part of this great stellar nursery. Four bright, hot and young stars are responsible for exciting the gas clouds in the nebula. The atoms in the cloud have a high a temperature and are energized by ultraviolet light from a nearby star and emit radiation as they fall back into lower energy levels. (Courtesy of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope).
References:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/gif/OrionFull.txt
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu:80/billa/twn/n1976x.html

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