Today’s ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week highlights another view of a distant stellar birthplace. This view, captured in a parallel field to the recently released image, shows a neighboring region of the N159 star-forming complex in the Large Magellanic Cloud, about 160,000 light-years away.
Dense clouds of cold hydrogen gas dominate the scene, creating an intricate network of peaks, cavities and glowing filaments. The newly formed stars embedded within these dense clouds begin to glow, their intense radiation causing the surrounding hydrogen to glow deep red.
The brightest regions mark the presence of hot, massive young stars whose powerful stellar winds and energetic light reshape their environments. These forces create bubble-like structures and hollow cavities in the gas, which are clear signatures of stellar feedback in action. The dark clouds in the foreground are sparkling with new stars from behind. Together, the glowing clouds and sculpted bubbles reveal a dynamic interplay between star formation and the material from which stars arise, reflecting the ongoing cycle of formation and change within this neighboring galaxy system.
N159 is one of the most massive star-forming clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is the largest of the small galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. This image shows only a part of this massive star-forming complex, as the entire complex spans more than 150 light-years.
[Image description: A field filled with stars and covered by clouds of gas and dust. In the centre, a thick column of dark black dust blocks light from stars that light it up from behind. More clouds behind those stars are illuminated in pale colours. Complex, layered filaments of red dust lie to the left and right. Blue, white and gold stars in various sizes can be seen around, within and through the colourful layers of dust.]
