Overview

• NASA, ESA, CSA and the Space Telescope Science Institute released the near‑infrared view on September 4, capturing the young cluster Pismis 24 about 5,500 light‑years away in Scorpius.
• The image resolves thousands of stars within the cluster and reveals tens of thousands more in the Milky Way background.
• Pismis 24-1, the cluster’s brightest object, is confirmed as at least two stars of roughly 74 and 66 solar masses, though the pair is not resolved in this frame.
• Intense radiation and stellar winds from super‑hot infant stars carve cavities and towering pillars, with the tallest spire spanning about 5.4 light‑years and a tip roughly 0.14 light‑years wide.
• Color mapping links cyan to ionized hydrogen, orange to dust, and red to cooler molecular hydrogen, while six‑point diffraction spikes flag the most massive stars.