A telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile has taken pictures of three clusters of dazzling newborn stars in the Prawn Nebula, a dense concentration of ionized gas and dust. The age of the stars is just a few million years.

The stars shine in ultraviolet light and illuminate the nebula’s gas clouds. The young stars are made up of leftovers of old stars that died in supernova explosions. The nebula is present in the constellation Scorpius at the distance of about 6,000 light-years from Earth,

The latest view of the Prawn Nebula has shown ‘cosmic recycling’ at work. It showed glowing clusters of newborn stars, illuminating nearby gas, expelled from an earlier stellar generation, which will ultimately form into even newer stars.

The 2.2-meter telescope snapped a choice section of the reddish nebula studded by young blue stars. It is very difficult to see the nebula, also known as Gum 56 and IC 4628, with the naked eye although it's nearly 250 light-years across. It is very faint and most of the times emit light at wavelengths which humans can’t see.

In a statement, ESO officials said, “The material forming these new stars includes the remains of the most massive stars from an older generation that have already ended their lives and ejected their material in violent supernova explosions. Thus the cycle of stellar life and death continues”. Once the dust and gas become dense enough, a part will collapse down into the beginnings of a star.