Newborn
stars peek out from beneath their natal blanket of dust, as seen by NASA's
Spitzer Space Telescope.
The "Rho
Oph" nebula is one of the closest star-forming regions to our solar
system. Its large main cloud of hydrogen helps birth new stars from
the cold cosmic gas. X-ray and infrared observations show more than 300 young
stars within the central cloud, with a median age of just 300,000 years
compared with the oldest stars more than 12 billion years old.
Colors in
this false-color image reflect the relative temperatures and stages of life for
various stars. The youngest stars are surrounded by dusty gas disks and show up
red, while more evolved stars that have shed their baby blankets shine blue. The
white nebula in the right side of the image glows in the infrared light due to
heating of the dust by bright young stars near its right edge.
— NASA/JPL-Caltech and SPACE.com Staff
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian
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