The Lagoon Nebula, also known as the Hourglass Nebula, is a bright emission nebula which lies about 5,000 light years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Within the Lagoon Nebula there are several collapsing clouds of gas and dust where new stars are forming. The brightest area is a region of very active star formation.
For this false-color Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) composite, the 8.28 µm band was mapped to the blue channel, the green channel is a combination of the 12.13 µm band and the 14.65 µm band, and the 21.3 µm band was mapped to the red channel. This image covers about 4.5 x 4.5 degrees in the sky.
Credit: MSX/IPAC/NASA