A Chilean observatory has snapped optical images of a region of star birth, where the light from bright young stars reflects off interstellar clouds and dust in a constellation called the Southern Crown.

The MPG/ESO telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory photographed a region in the southern Milky Way known as R Coronae Australis. The complex of young stars and interstellar gas clouds is one of the nearest star-forming regions, at about 500 light-years from the Sun.

The smoke-like wisps reflecting the starlight are interstellar clouds of gas and small dust particles. The gas and dust emit no light of their own.

The brightness of the stars in the image varies. They belong to the so-called "T Tauri" class, a type that is common in star-forming regions. T Tauri stars are in the early stages of stellar evolution.

In the second image, a closeup of the central region, Herbig-Haro objects are visible. These dense clumps of gas are ejected at high speeds from the immediate vicinity of newly formed stars. When such clumps ram into the interstellar gas, the atoms are heated and start to shine, making the objects visible.