The festive season has arrived for astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in the form of this dramatic new image.

Hubble Space Telescope -- The revived Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has penetrated layers of dust in a star-forming cloud to uncover a dense, craggy edifice of dust and gas [image at right].

Hubble Space Telescope -- Resembling a nightmarish beast rearing its head from a crimson sea, this monstrous object is actually an innocuous pillar of gas and dust.