Busy Nursery

Regions of dense, cold gas and dust are giving birth to many new stars in NGC 346, a huge stellar nursery about 200,000 light-years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a companion galaxy to the Milky Way. The colder regions, colored in orange in this infrared view from James Webb Space Telescope, are where new stars are born. As the stars form, they heat and blow away the surrounding material, forming long streamers of hot gas (pink) and creating big cavities and pillars. More stars are being born in the pillars. [NASA/ESA/CSA/Olivia C. Jones (UK ATC)/Guido De Marchi (ESTEC)/Margaret Meixner (USRA)]