July – The Orion Nebula star formation region

This spectacular image of the Orion Nebula star formation region was obtained from multiple exposures using the HAWK-I infrared camera on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. This deep, comprehensive view of the nebula reveals about ten times as many brown dwarfs — stars too small to undergo nuclear fusion — and isolated planetarymass objects than previously known, providing exciting insight into Orion’s star formation history.