The Tadpoles and Flaming Star

The Tadpoles, the blue area in the lower right, is a dusty emission nebula located in the constellation of Auriga at about 12,000 light years from Earth. It's part of a larger star forming region that also contains the Flaming Star Nebula shown here in the upper left of the image. According to NASA, “This Tadpole region is chock full of stars as young as only a million years -- infants in stellar terms -- and masses over 10 times that of our sun. It is called the Tadpole nebula because the masses of hot, young stars are blasting out ultraviolet radiation that has etched the gas into two tadpole-shaped pillars.” The Flaming Star nebula lies about 1,500 light-years away from Earth and is about 5 light-years wide