Inspiring!

Last night I looked through Simone's huge binoculars at the Orion nebula. You can just about see the nebula which is below Orion's belt. The nebula is also called M42 and is shown in the illustration below. The nebula is approximately 1,270 light years away and is about 24 light years across. It was beautiful- couldn't believe what I was seeing.



A nebula is a cloud of dust, hydrogen gas and plasma. It is the first stage of a star's cycle. In a nebula gas, dust and other materials 'clump' together to form larger masses, which attract further matter, and eventually it will become big enough to form stars. The remaining materials are then believed to form planets.