M43 is a nebula, a cloud of gas actively churning out stars. Located in Orion, it's easily seen even in binoculars, but when you use Hubble, you get some fantastic detail. In this image we're seeing stars in the act of forming, and the violence of their birth is displayed. Stars form from whirling disks of material; the centers collapse to form stars, and the outer parts can coagulate to become planets like Earth. When the star is still very young, it blows off huge amounts of material. Magnetic fields as well as the presence of the disk tend to focus this material into beams, like two flashlights taped end-to-end. The outward-rushing matter slams into the junk floating in space around it - at speeds upwards of a million kilometers per hour! - puffing it up into elongated teardrop-shaped lobes. You can see one of these objects just left of center in this image. There's probably another lobe, hidden behind thick layers of opaque dust.

To the right and just below the bright star near the top of this image you can see a little flare of white light. This is actually the glow from an infant star, and in the high-res image you can see this looks like a hamburger; the patty is actually the disk of material seen edge-on. A few years back we knew such objects must exist, but it wasn't until Hubble that we got such clear views of them. We can now actually observe stars in every single stage of their lives. It's an amazing time to be an astronomer... or to be someone who appreciates the beauty of astronomy.

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

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