Young Stars in the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud . ... Credit Copyright: NASA , JPL-Caltech , WISE Team Explanation: Dust clouds and embedded newborn stars glow at infrared wavelengths in this tantalizing false-color composition from WISE, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer . ... After forming along a large cloud of cold molecular hydrogen gas, young stars heat the surrounding dust to produce the infrared glow. ... That's extremely young compared to the Sun's age of 5 billion years. ...