Gum 37 and the Southern Tadpoles. /Courtesy of Francis Bozon & Cecil Navick

This image contains young stars, glowing gas, and dark dust clouds of NGC 3572. The beautiful emission nebula and star cluster NGC 3572 are positioned in the southern sky of the navigation constellation Carina. The stars of NGC 3572 are located at the top center of the image, and this star cluster is approximately 9,000 light-years away (a light-year is the distance light travels in one year, roughly 9.46 trillion kilometers), allowing for an estimated size of about 100 light-years. The interstellar gas and dust, indicated by colors from the Hubble palette, comprise some of the birth molecular clouds of the star cluster, classified as Gum 37. The flow of dense material within the nebula is eroded by the winds and radiation from the young stars and streams outward, indicating a high likelihood of ongoing star formation. Its shape is similar to that of the tadpoles in IC 410. Over millions of years, stars and gas will be scattered by the gravitational tides and the supernova explosions that end the short lifespans of massive stars.