Cloudy with a chance of stars

SOFIA, IRAM, 1 JULY 2020

Combining data from NASA’s Boeing-borne SOFIA telescope and the 30m radioscope at the Institute for Radio Astronomy in the Millimeter Range (IRAM), this image seems to capture stars being born in the Orion Nebula, the closest active star-forming region to Earth. It shows densely packed dust clouds (circled) which researchers believe are emergent low-mass stars.