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This infrared picture from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope
shows the birthplace of thousands of stars in an area of space called W-5.
The empty spaces are where giant stars have blasted away most of the gas and dust.
Where new stars are being born, they form pillars
that point at the stars that cleared away the rest of the gas and dust.
In visible light, most of this dust is too dark to see.
By looking at different colors of infrared light we see different features of gas and dust.
Images like this help us learn more about the Universe, and how our own Sun was born.