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PIA14101: Stars Adorn Orion's Sword

This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows what lies near the sword of the constellation Orion -- an active stellar nursery containing thousands of young stars and developing protostars. Many will turn out like our sun.

Mission:	Spitzer Space Telescope
Instrument:	IRAC
Product Size:	3220 x 6000 pixels (w x h)
Produced By:	IPAC-Caltech
Other Information:	JPL News Release 2011-161
Full-Res TIFF:	PIA14101.tif (57.96 MB)
Full-Res JPEG:	PIA14101.jpg (859.1 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows what lies near the sword of the constellation Orion -- an active stellar nursery containing thousands of young stars and developing protostars. Many will turn out like our sun. Some are even more massive. These massive stars light up the Orion nebula, which is seen here as the bright region near the center of the image.

To the north of the Orion nebula is a dark filamentary cloud of cold dust and gas, over 5 light-years in length, containing ruby red protostars that jewel the hilt of Orion's sword. These are the newest generation of stars in this stellar nursery, and include the protostar HOPS 68, where Spitzer spotted tiny green crystals in a surrounding cloud of gas.

Image Credit:

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:

2011-05-26