Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Pagan (STScI)

This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) of star-forming region NGC 604 shows how large clouds of cooler gas and dust glow in mid-infrared wavelengths. This region is a hotbed of star formation and home to more than 200 of the hottest, most massive kinds of stars, all in the early stages of their lives.

In the MIRI view of NGC 604, there are noticeably fewer stars than Webb’s NIRCam image. This is because hot stars emit much less light at these wavelengths. Some of the stars seen in this image are red supergiants—stars that are cool but very large, hundreds of times the diameter of our Sun. The blue tendrils of material signify the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-110

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

Image Use Policy: https://www.stsci.edu/copyright