STARS AND CONSTELLATIONS

The Orion Nebula (M42) appears as a fuzzy star near the Hunter’s Belt. It’s 1,500 lightyears away and appears to be 1° in diameter, but actually spans 35 lightyears. In Dorado there’s a similar emission nebula, the Tarantula. Its angular size is only half that of M42, but it’s larger at 1,800 lightyears across and farther away at 160,000 lightyears. If it was at M42’s distance, the nebula would cover more than 50° of sky, three times the height of the constellation of Orion.