Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2016

46 SPACE CHRONICLES beauty, but it has revealed a great abundance of faint brown dwarfs and isolated planetary-mass objects. The very presence of these low-mass bodies provides an exciting insight into the history of star formation within the nebula itself. The famous Orion Nebula spans about 24 light- years within the constellation of Ori- on, and is visible from Earth with the naked eye, as a fuzzy patch in Ori- on’s sword. Some nebulae, like Ori- on, are strongly illuminated by ul- traviolet radiation from the many hot stars born within them, such that the gas is ionised and glows brightly. Deepest ever look into Orion by ESO A n international team has made use of the power of the HAWK-I infrared instru- ment on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) to produce the deepest and most comprehensive view of the Orion Nebula to date. Not only has this led to an image of spectacular