Zooming in on the Lupus 3 dark cloud and associated hot young stars

This zoom sequence starts with a view of the central parts of the Milky Way. We close in on a region in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). The final view, taken with the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows a dark cloud where new stars are forming along with a cluster of brilliant stars that have already burst out of their dusty stellar nursery. This cloud is known as Lupus 3 and it lies about 600 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). It is likely that the Sun formed in a similar star formation region more than four billion years ago.