Close-up View: Stellar Nursery Messier 78 | Euclid Space Telescope | ESA

Close-up View: Stellar Nursery Messier 78 | Euclid Space Telescope | ESA

This new image from the European Space Agency’s Euclid space mission is a higher resolution, close-up cutout from a larger frame featuring Messier 78, a vibrant nursery of star formation enveloped in a shroud of interstellar dust, and its surroundings. Messier 78 lies 1,300 light-years away in the constellation of Orion within our Milky Way galaxy. 

The image illustrates how newly forming stars create a 'cavity' in the surrounding molecular cloud by generating winds of charged particles. The colors relate to ionized atomic hydrogen (the main component of the cloud; blue) and the absorption and scattering of light by dust grains (red).

Image Description: The image shows hundreds of stars with a number brighter than others. The stars seem to light up their cloud-like surroundings in purple. A darker structure spans the image in an arch from upper left to bottom right. The bottom of this arch runs into dense clouds forming the darkest part of the image.

Credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA Image Processing: J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay), G. Anselmi

Release Date: May 23, 2024

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