A space telescope has taken spectacular pictures of stars being born in a region called the Christmas Tree Cluster.
Nasa’s orbiting Spitzer telescope was able to penetrate dust to reveal the infant stars swaddled by clouds of gas.
The dramatic image, right, which resembles coloured lights on a Christmas tree, is of a stellar nursery in the constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn.
The nebula lies 2,500 light years away which means the light has taken 2,500 years to reach us.
Spitzer’s cameras are designed to observe the heat from the universe by being especially sensitive to infrared light.
Principal investigator Erick Young, of the University of Arizona, said: “For the first time, we can see individual stars roughly the size of our sun tightly packed together.”