Nebulas are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble . Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw Nebula visible toward the constellation of the Scorpion ( Scorpius ). At 5,700 light years distant, Cat's Paw is an emission nebula within a larger molecular cloud. Alternatively known as the Bear Claw Nebula and cataloged as NGC 6334 , stars nearly ten times the mass of our Sun have been born there in only the past few million years. Pictured here is a recently released image of the Cat's Paw taken in infrared light by the James Webb Space Telescope . This newly detailed view into the nebula helps provide insight for how turbulent molecular cloud s turn gas into stars.
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