Spitzer Space Telescope views cosmic bubbles in infrared

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope views the Universe in infrared light, giving astronomers a look at objects and structures within the cosmos that would normally be invisible.

• Read our interview with Spitzer project scientist Dr Michael Werner

This image shows a cloud of gas and dust within our home galaxy, the Milky Way, that contains huge cosmic bubbles (seen as blobs of red) stretching 30 lightyears across.

The bubbles are inflated by wind and radiation from newborn massive stars, and each bubble is filled with hundreds to thousands of stars.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Milky Way Project