This is a beautiful color composite picture, built from images in the infrared spectral range (3.6 to 24 microns) taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope, of a molecular cloud and its associated stellar cluster, NGC2264. The cluster is located about 3,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Monoceros the Unicorn. The bright reddish sources are protostars deeply embedded in dusty and gaseous filaments of material within the cloud. Studies of such stellar nurseries help us further our knowledge of the star formation process. Credit: P. S. Teixeira, C. J. Lada (SAO), and E. T. Young (University of Arizona)

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