images

Star clusters IC 348 in Perseus

by

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Novapix

Reference

a-aou92-34801

Date

2007-01-31

The IC 348 is a cluster which contains more than 300 young stars. Baby stars are forming near the eastern rim of the cosmic cloud Perseus, in this infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The baby stars are approximately three million years old and are shown as reddish-pink dots to the right of the image. The pinkish color indicates that these infant stars are still shrouded by the cosmic dust and gas that collapsed to form them. The Perseus Nebula is located about 1,043 light-years away in the Perseus constellation.