AP PROVIDES ACCESS TO THIS PUBLICLY DISTRIBUTED HANDOUT PHOTO PROVIDED BY NASA; MANDATORY CREDIT
This image made available by NASA shows the Cat's Paw Nebula inside the Milky Way Galaxy located in the constellation Scorpius, captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Its distance from Earth is estimated to be between 1.3 kiloparsecs (about 4,200 light years) to 1.7 kiloparsecs (about 5,500 light years). The bright, cloudlike band running left to right across the image shows the presence of gas and dust that can collapse to form new stars. The black filaments running through the nebula are particularly dense regions of gas and dust. The entire star-forming region is thought to be between 24 and 27 parsecs (80-90 light years) across. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP)
