Star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud
author: Anglo-Australian Observatory/David Malin Images/Novapix
reference: a-neb20-70010
Image Size 300 DPI: 40 * 51 cm
This picture shows a group of such nebulosities and star clusters stretching across the northern outskirts of our nearest extragalactic neighbour, the Large Magellanic Cloud. Within each cloud of fluorescent hydrogen is a cluster of hot stars and in some cases these stars have begun to blow the surrounding gas away, occasionally producing vast bubbles and shells of nebulosity. When this process is almost complete, as it is in the upper part of the picture, clouds of distinctly blue, very bright stars remain, some in the form of the very compact clusters which are so typical of star formation in the LMC and so unusual in the Milky Way.
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), is the closest galaxy to the Milky Way, about 160,000 light years distant. Almost all the miriads of stars and star clusters seen here are part of the LMC.