It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780 and included by Charles Messier in his catalog of comet-like objects that same year.

This group belongs to the Orion B molecular cloud complex and is about 1,350 light-years distant from Earth.

[2] M78 is easily found in small telescopes as a hazy patch and involves two stars of 10th and 11th magnitude.

[2] Due to gravity, the molecular gas in the nebula has fragmented into a hierarchy of clumps,[2] whose cores have masses ranging from 0.3 M☉ to 5 M☉.

[8] On May 23, 2024, the European Space Agency released an initial set of images from their Euclid mission.