An image from Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope

[ukhudshanskiy]

A stellar nursery containing thousands of young stars and developing protostars near the sword of the constellation Orion. Massive stars light up the Orion nebula, the bright region near the centre of the image. To the north of the nebula is a dark filamentary cloud of cold dust and gas over five light years long, containing ruby red protostars that jewel the hilt of Orion's sword