Trained on the spectacular Flame Nebula, the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes went hunting for the smallest stars in the universe.

The nursery -- known formally as the Orion A molecular cloud -- is actually the closest known "star factory" to Earth at 1,350 light-years away, according to the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

forming part of the Orion molecular cloud complex. It's thick with dust and gas – so thick that it's as dark as shadows in optical light. In many photos, the cloud appears as a hole in the ...

On winter evenings, Orion is one of the easiest star patterns ... the wave of new stars passing deeper into the great molecular cloud, its creative and destructive energies far from spent.