Images: Traveling inside Orion's sword

This image, one of the sharpest ever taken by the Hubble telescope, contains about 3,000 stars--many have never been seen in visible light.

The bright lights of the Trapezium Stars illuminate this area of the Orion Nebula. Ultraviolet light from these stars is creating a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of hundreds of stars. A whitish-looking disk, between and just above the two bright stars on the left, is a bubble of gas and dust.

Arcs and bubbles are formed in this region by the solar winds ejected by the Trapezium stars, which collide with material.

This star-forming region of the Orion Nebula, rich in galactic colors, is full of scientific wonders and would make an artist proud.