Orion in Miniature: Messier 43 | Hubble

Orion in Miniature: Messier 43 | Hubble

A massive star is illuminating this small region, called Messier 43 (M43), and sculpting the landscape of dust and gas. Astronomers call the area a miniature Orion Nebula because of its small size and the single star that is shaping it. The Orion Nebula itself is much larger and has four hefty stars that are carving the dust-and-gas terrain. The distance to the Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years (460 parsecs).

Technical details:

This image is a composite mosaic of many separate exposures made by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's La Silla 2.2 meter telescope using several different filters isolating the light of specific elements or of specific broad wavelength ranges. The color arises by assigning different hues (colors), to each monochromatic image. In this case, the colors are:

Blue: ACS F435W (B) + ESO BB#B/99_ESO842 B

Green: ACS F555W (V) + ESO NB#OIII/8_ESO859 [O III]

Red-orange: ACS F658N (Halpha)

Red: ACS F775W (i) + F850LP (z) + ESO NB#Halpha/7_ESO856 + ESO NB#SIIr/8_ESO857 [S II]

Credits: NASA, European Space Agency, ESO, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

Release Date: January 11, 2006

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