Photo credit: NASA

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured a striking new image of a young star (a protostar) still forming within the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex — a vast stellar nursery in the constellation Orion, also known as the “Hunter.”

The image shows the protostar’s powerful outflows and stellar winds shaping the gas and dust around it, carving a visible cavity in the dense cloud. This process illustrates a key phase of early stellar evolution, as newborn stars begin to clear away the material that once fed their growth.

Located roughly 1,300–1,500 light-years from Earth, the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex is one of the closest and most studied star-forming regions. It is known for producing many of the brightest and most interesting stars visible in our night sky.

The image was created from data collected by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and astronomer T. Megeath of the University of Toledo. The final image processing was done by Gladys Kober of NASA’s Catholic University of America.

This new snapshot offers astronomers and the public a vivid look at the turbulent environment of stellar birth and helps scientists better understand how young stars interact with and eventually disperse the material that surrounds them.