This James Webb Space Telescope image shows the giant molecular cloud Orion A, an area of the sky replete with star-forming clouds. Photo courtesy of NASA
A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope is giving astronomers a striking look at young stars forming 1,280 light-years from Earth.
Webb has turned its gaze toward the constellation Orion before, but the latest observations focus on a region known as Orion Molecular Clouds 2, or OMC-2. The star-forming region stretches about 150 light-years across and is packed with young stars.
"The intense star-forming activity has produced an impressive display of billowing outflows and sparkling stars atop swirling layers of gas and dark, obscuring clouds," the European Space Agency said.
OMC-2 can only be studied with Webb's Near-Infrared Camera because thick gas and dust block visible light from reaching Earth.
