Milky Way Stellar Nursery (IMAGE)

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Milky Way Stellar Nursery

Caption

A snapshot of a stellar nursery in our home galaxy, the Milky Way shows a high-mass star forming region inside the giant molecular cloud S255, about 8,000 light-years away from Earth (1 light-year is roughly 10 trillion kilometers). Such clouds are typically opaque to visible light. However, infrared light can penetrate the dust, so that the LUCIFER image reveals the cluster of newly born stars and its complex environment in all their splendor.

Credit

Arjan Bik

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