Making good on its promise to detect unseen reaches of the universe, the Herschel telescope has unveiled a tapestry of majestic colors in a nebulous cloud of forming stars 5,000 light years from Earth.

Two Herschel instruments teamed up to capture this composite image of the Rosette nebula, a star-forming region 5,000 light years from Earth. Credit: ESA and the PACS, SPIRE & HSC consortia, F. Motte (AIM Saclay,CEA/IRFU - CNRS/INSU - U.ParisDidedrot) for the HOBYS key program

The three-color composite image was assembled by combining observations from two of Herschel's infrared cameras, which can also slice light into its spectral components to help scientists determine the chemical composition of objects in space.

The picture shows a portion of the Rosette nebula, a star-forming region in the Monoceros, or Unicorn, constellation. The Rosette cloud contains enough dust and gas to create about 10,000 suns, scientists said.

Bright smudges of light in the image are embryonic protostars that will grow into objects 10 times more massive than the sun. Smaller points of light are less massive stars comparable to the size of the sun, according to written statements by the European Space Agency and NASA.

The Rosetta nebula also includes even larger stars not visible in the Herschel image. Winds and radiation from the more mature star cluster blow material away from the forming stars, creating the pillar-like structures attached to the thicker cloud material. The protostars are located in the tips of the pillars, according to NASA.

Colors in the snapshot indicate different temperatures, ranging from -387 degrees to -441 degrees Fahrenheit. Herschel's detectors are immersed in a reservoir of super cold liquid helium, cooling the instruments enough to observe the most frigid corners of the universe.

"Herschel can see through cold thickets of dust to where big, baby stars are forming," said Paul Goldsmith, the NASA project scientist for Herschel at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The picture is Herschel's first look into the stellar nurseries where the galaxy's largest and hottest stars are born.

"High-mass star-forming regions are rare and further away than low-mass ones," said Frederique Motte, the lead researcher of a survey focusing on the development of large stars.

Motte is based at the French National Center of Scientific Research and Atomic and Alternative Energies Center in Paris.

Artist's concept of Herschel in space. Credit: ESA

"Herschel will look at many other high-mass star-forming regions, some of them building stars up to a hundred times the mass of the Sun," Motte said.

Infrared space telescopes are the only observatories that can capture such breathtaking images. Clouds of cold dust surrounding the forming stars block their light in visible wavelengths.

The $1.3 billion mission is led by ESA with significant NASA contributions.

Herschel is stationed about 1 million miles from Earth to minimize potential infrared interference from Earth and the moon.

The ultra-sensitive telescope carries the largest primary mirror ever flown in space, allowing it to collect more light and see deeper into the cosmos.