APOD 4.2 Spitzer's Orion

The Orion Nebula, M42, is a star forming region some 4o light years across. It is 1500 light years away and is visible in the constellation Orion. The young stars in the nebula experience fluctuations in brightness and the Spitzer Space Telescope is keeping tabs on the young stars. One of the causes for the aforementioned changes in brightness is the presence of dusty, planet forming disks, which can pass between our point of view and the star's light, thus affecting the amount of light that reaches us. The brightest stars in the nebula are part of the Trapezium cluster and all of the stars in the nebula are only about 1 million years old, compared to our sun's age of 4.6 billion years. The image was taken in false color that was caused by the absence of Spitzer's liquid coolant, which ran out in 2009.