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W3 Star-Forming Region

One of the current big problems in astrophysics is explaining how high mass stars form.
By looking at star-forming regions in great detail with Herschel, astronomers are starting to piece together a picture. The region shown above is known as “W3", and is a Giant Molecular Cloud which lies around 6200 light years away in one of the spiral arms of our Galaxy.
The main region of interest is on the left of the image above, where newly-formed, massive stars are heating the dust and gas around them. In this image, warmer material appears blue and white, while cooler material appears red.
In the full frame image, shown right, numerous nearby structures are seen, including pillars and filaments of cold gas and dust, just a few tens of degrees above absolute zero. There is also a scattering or small, yellow dots, which are cool, dense clumps of dust. Most of these lie along the filaments or in the pillars, and represent the earliest stages of star formation.