JWST spotlights Orion A as a bustling stellar nursery

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope released a detailed image of the Orion A giant molecular cloud, a 290‑light-year filament about 1,300 light-years away that hosts thousands of young stars and their protoplanetary disks. The region has formed roughly 3,000 stellar objects over the past few million years, making it one of the closest and most active stellar nurseries. The JWST image, issued as the telescope’s Picture of the Month, underscores the mission’s transformative impact on studying star and planet formation since its July 2022 launch.