Stellar Nurseries

A stellar nursery is a place in space where new stars are made. These nurseries are huge clouds of gas and dust. The clouds can be many light-years across. Inside them, gravity pulls material together to make new stars.

How Stars Are Born

Stars begin as cold, dark clouds of gas in space. Gravity slowly pulls the gas into clumps. The clumps get smaller, hotter, and denser. When a clump gets hot enough, it starts to shine. A new star is born. This process can take millions of years.

Famous Nurseries

The Orion Nebula is a famous stellar nursery. You can see it as a fuzzy spot in the sword of Orion. Another nursery is the Eagle Nebula, which holds the Pillars of Creation. Space telescopes take amazing pictures of these places. They show bright baby stars wrapped in clouds of gas.

Fun Facts

• The Orion Nebula is about 1,300 light-years from Earth.
• Stellar nurseries can make thousands of stars at once.
• Baby stars sometimes shoot out jets of gas called Herbig-Haro objects.

Did You Know?

Our own Sun was born inside a stellar nursery about 4.6 billion years ago.