This image shows the Great Orion Nebula M42 (NGC 1976) together with its smaller neighbor, De Mairan's Nebula M43 (NGC 1982), which is actually a part of the Great Nebula. These bright nebulae are actually the brightest part of a huge cloud of interstellar gas and dust which is several hundred light years across. The Orion Nebula is one of the most famous deep-sky objects in astronomy and, at just 1,500 lightyears away, is the closest major star-forming region to Earth.