Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

Composed of gas and dust, a pillar resides in a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. The infrared image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, reveals the infant star that is blasting a jet of material. Infrared light is able to pass through the dust. Other infant stars inside the pillar also appear to emerge. Three examples are the bright star almost directly below the jet-producing star, a fainter one to its right, and a pair of stars at the top of the pillar. Winds and radiation from some of the stars are blowing away gas from their neighborhoods, carving out large cavities that appear as faint dark holes. Surrounding the stellar nursery is a treasure chest full of stars, most of which cannot be seen in the visible-light image because dense gas clouds veil their light. Many of them are background stars.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2009/news-2009-25

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

Image Use Policy: http://hubblesite.org/copyright/