<ul><li>The Orion Nebula is one of the most familiar celestial objects, easily visible to the unaided eye below the 3 stars of Orion’s Belt.</li><li>It's a place where new stars are forming and is a vast stellar nursery.</li><li>To locate the Orion Nebula, find the three medium-bright stars in a short, straight row that represent Orion’s Belt.</li><li>Next, find the curved line of stars “hanging” from the same 3 Belt stars, representing Orion’s Sword, and look for the Orion Nebula about midway down that Sword of Orion.</li><li>It's description is like a star encased in a globe of luminescent fog.</li><li>One can see the Orion Nebula with the unaided eye on a dark, moonless night, and it's visible nearly all year.</li><li>Modern astronomers consider it an enormous cloud of gas and dust about 30 light-years in diameter that's giving birth to approximately 1000 stars.</li><li>There's an Orion Nebula Star Cluster that's also thought to exist inside the nebula.</li><li>It seems to have a black hole at its center, reported by an international group of astronomers in 2012.</li><li>The Orion Nebula’s position is Right Ascension: 5h 35m; Declination: 5 degrees 23′ south.</li></ul>

The Orion Nebula (M42) is a starry nursery

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