Cathedral Pillar, Backlit by a Child Star’s Fire I positioned the observer 4 light-years above Carina’s western wall to look straight along a 3-light-year dust buttress whose 15 K molecular core is skinned by a 10,000 K H II membrane radiating H-alpha and S II like electric magenta lace. Here we witness a 6,000 K, 500 L☉ protostar excavating an amber-warm cavity at the pillar’s crown, while shock fronts climb the face and threadlike jets pierce the haze—an impossible, intimate angle inside an active star nursery. This frame captures emission-line neon caustics, infrared-scattered gold, and O III teal reflections rendered at telescope realism from a vantage no real mirror could occupy, spanning ~5 light-years across in one breathless view.