Stars Flaring to Life in The Orion Molecular Cloud Complex | Hubble

Stars Flaring to Life in The Orion Molecular Cloud Complex | Hubble

Just-forming stars, called protostars, dazzle a cloudy landscape in the Orion Molecular Cloud complex (OMC). Protostar HOPS 181 is buried in layers of dusty gas clouds, but its energy shapes the material that surrounds it.

A protostar wrapped in obscuring dust creates a cavity with glowing walls while its jet streams into space. The bright star in the lower right quadrant called CVSO 188 might seem like the diva in this image, but HOPS 310, located just to the left of center behind the dust, is the true hidden star. This protostar is responsible for the large cavity with bright walls that has been carved into the surrounding cloud of gas and dust by its jets and stellar winds. Running diagonally to the top right is one of the bipolar jets of the protostar. These jets consist of particles launched at high speeds from the protostar’s magnetic poles. Background galaxies are visible in the upper right of the image.

A protostar wrapped in obscuring dust creates a cavity with glowing walls while its jet streams into space. The bright protostar to the left in this Hubble image is located within the Orion Molecular Clouds. Its stellar winds—ejected, fast-flowing particles that are spurred by the star’s magnetic field—have carved a large cavity in the surrounding cloud. In the top right, background stars speckle the image.

These three new images from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope were taken as part of an effort to learn more about the envelopes of gas and dust surrounding the protostars, as well as the outflow cavities where stellar winds and jets from the developing stars have carved away at the surrounding gas and dust. The Orion Molecular Cloud complex (OMC) lies within the “sword” of the constellation Orion, roughly 1,300 light-years away.

Scientists used these Hubble observations as part of a broader survey to study protostellar envelopes, or the gas and dust around the developing star. Researchers found no evidence that the outflow cavities were growing as the protostar moved through the later stages of star formation. They also found that the decreasing accretion of mass onto the protostars over time and the low rate of star formation in the cool, molecular clouds cannot be explained by the progressive clearing out of the envelopes.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and T. Megeath (University of Toledo); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
Release Date: Jan. 14, 2026

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