Westerlund 2 Leggings

This image, titled "Dwarf stars in a glittering sky," is a view of the young star cluster Westerlund 2 captured by the James Webb Space Telescope using its Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI). Located roughly 20,000 light-years away in the star-forming region Gum 29 within the constellation Carina, the image showcases sculpted walls and dense clouds of glowing red and orange interstellar gas carved out by the intense light and radiation of massive newborn stars. Scattered across the frame are thousands of sparkling white and blue stars featuring Webb's signature six-pointed diffraction spikes, alongside wisps of pale blue and pink gas. These infrared observations have allowed astronomers to peer through the dust to reveal hundreds of young stars with planet-forming disks as well as the cluster's previously hidden population of low-mass brown dwarfs.

Image Source: NASA, ESA, CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team / ESA/Webb ("Webb: Dwarf stars in a glittering sky", ESA/Webb Picture of the Month).