A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope peers through a dusty veil to reveal what astronomers are calling one of the most violent pockets of star birth ever found in our Milky Way Galaxy. The newborn stars are huge and bright -- up to 100,000 times as bright as the Sun, and the scene is violent.

"We've never seen anything like this before," said William Reach of the California Institute of Technology, which runs the telescope's science operations. "The massive stars are ripping the cloud of gas and dust around them to shreds."

The activity is about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. Among the star-forming regions is a prominent one named DR21, located near the top-center of the image.

This pocket of star birth is shrouded in so much dust that visible light does not penetrate. Previous radio and near-infrared observations showed a powerful jet of material emanating from the cloud. Spitzer detects infrared light, which can pass through dust. Inside DR21, a dense knot of huge stars is revealed.

Red regions correspond to organic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. From DR21, a green jet of gas shoots downward and to the left, past the bulge of stars. It represents hot gas ejected from the region's biggest star, the astronomers said. The jet contains carbon monoxide and molecular hydrogen.

More pockets of star formation are visible below DR21. A large swirling cloud to the lower left is thought to be a similar stellar nursery. And the giant bubble to the left is likely the remnant of past activity.

Spitzer was launched last August. The new image, released Tuesday, was made as part of a project led by Anthony Marston at the European Space Research and Technology Center in The Netherlands.

-- Robert Roy Britt

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Marston (ESTEC/ESA) & A. Noriega-Crespo (SSC/Caltech)