A previously unseen stellar nursery comes into view in this Herschel image. Six hundred newly forming stars are estimated to be crowded into these colourful filaments of dust. The complex is part of a mysterious ring of stars called Gould’s Belt.
This image shows a dark cloud located 1000 light years away in the constellation Aquila, the Eagle. It covers an area 25 light years across and is so shrouded in dust that no previous infrared satellite has been able to see into it. Now thanks to Herschel’s superior sensitivity at the longest wavelengths of infrared, astronomers have their first picture of the interior of this cloud. Link
