Hubble Space Telescope Views Cosmic Maelstrom, See How It Looks

A recent shot from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope showed a maelstrom of dark dust and glowing gas in a nearby galaxy, called the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) that orbits the Milky Way. The image reportedly captured a stormy scene of a nursery of stars known as N159, a HII region spread across 150 light-years.

Into the storm - Hubble views maelstrom of glowing gas & dark dust in Large Magellanic Cloud https://t.co/lvRSyrM08y pic.twitter.com/gwjagJhimf

— ESA Science (@esascience) September 5, 2016

A HII region comprises of ionized interstellar atomic hydrogen, and is also referred to as a stellar nursery, therefore it is not surprising that there are many young hot stars in N159 that emit intense ultraviolet light, which makes the nearby hydrogen gas glow. The young stars of N159 also emit torrential stellar winds that carve out filaments, arcs and ridges from the material surrounding them.

A butterfly shaped region of haziness, called the Papillon Nebula, lies in the center of the cosmic cloud. The dense and small area is defined as a High-Excitation Blob and has been related to the initial phases of a massive star formation. The stellar nursery N159 is situated more than 160,000 light-years away in the constellation Dorado, near the south of another massive star forming region inside the LMC, called the Tarantula Nebula.

Incidentally, the LMC is a satellite galaxy that is rich in dust and gas and at present is going through the vigorous activity of star formation, and the Tarantula Nebula is among the most active star forming areas in it. The LMC is also referred to as an astronomical treasure house due to the presence of a varied and huge range of galactic objects and cosmic phenomena that help researchers in studying the evolution and growth of stars.

The color photo seen in the image here was composed from different exposures captured with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in the visible and near-infrared areas of the spectrum. Two filters, a near-infrared filter F814W and a green filter F555W were used to test numerous wavelengths. The final color is the product of assigning different shades to each monochromatic photo related to an individual filter.