The closest stellar nursery in the galaxy spreads across the sky in this recent image, snapped at near-infrared wavelengths, which capture the faint glow of massive clouds of gas and dust. The complex is known as Orion A, and it includes M42, the famous Orion Nebula, which is the bright clump at left. But the complex of gas and dust spreads far beyond the nebula. It has given birth to thousands of new stars, with more forming even now. Orion A is about 1,350 light-years away, in the sword of the constellation Orion. [ESO]