Colorful stars sparkle across a sea of cosmic dust and gas in this new view of Gum 26, a star-forming region in the Milky Way galaxy. Located 20,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Vela, the sails, Gum 26 is a hydrogen-rich emission nebula, also known as an H II region, where collapsing clumps of dust and gas are actively forming new stars. This new image of the stellar nursery was captured by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.