Watch: This is how Earth's closest star-forming neighbor looks like
What's the story
Greg Meyer, an amateur astronomer, recently clicked a mind-blowing image of the Rho Ophiuchi stellar nursery and Messier 4 globular cluster.
The photo was clicked during a stargazing event in Texas last month.
Meyer used a thermoelectrically cooled monochrome astronomy camera, mounted on a compact Radian Raptor 61mm telescope for the job.
He clicked 177 individual three- to five-minute exposures of the vast interstellar cloud over some 14 hours and 45 minutes.
Stellar features
Rho Ophiuchi: Earth's closest star-forming region
The Rho Ophiuchi nebula system, which Meyer photographed, is the nearest star-forming region to Earth.
It has been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope in the past few years.
The brightest star in Meyer's image is Antares, an aging red giant on the right of the cosmic vista.
Above Antares near top of the frame is Messier 4 globular cluster which contains around 100,000 stellar bodies according to NASA.
Image processing
The process behind the stunning image
Meyer meticulously processed the data using astrophotography software PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom, and Photoshop. This resulted in a detailed interstellar image showcasing swirling gas clouds and dark dusty filaments.
"A favorite among astrophotographers, I wanted to try it from a dark sky area, and I was at the Texas Star Party in April 2025," Meyer told Space.com.
"This object was rising after midnight with the Milky Way, so [I] was able to get some good data."
Cosmic distances
Distances of celestial bodies in Meyer's image
The different elements in Meyer's image are not as close to each other as they look.
NASA estimates Rho Ophiuchi is located some 390 light-years away from Earth, while Antares is some 550 light-years away.
Messier 4 is even farther, sitting some 5,500 light-years away from our planet.
This just goes on to show how vast space is and how far apart celestial bodies are.