Embryo Nebula

NGC 1333 is a reflection nebula in Perseus around 1,000 light-years away, embedded in the western end of the Perseus molecular cloud and one of the nearest active star-forming regions to Earth. The blue glow is starlight scattered from cold dust rather than gas emitting on its own account, while the ragged red and orange knots strung through the darker southern half are Herbig-Haro objects — shock fronts where high-speed jets from newborn protostars slam into the surrounding cloud. Several hundred young stellar objects are packed into the region, the majority less than a million years old and many still so deeply buried in dust that they are detectable only at infrared wavelengths. The cloud is also unusually rich in brown dwarfs, making it a key testing ground for how the smallest, coolest objects that fail to become stars are formed.