Stellar Nursery LHA 120-N 159 in the Large Magellanic Cloud | Hubble

Stellar Nursery LHA 120-N 159 in the Large Magellanic Cloud | Hubble

This shot from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope shows a maelstrom of glowing gas and dark dust within one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).

This stormy scene shows a stellar nursery known as N159, an HII region over 150 light-years across. N159 contains many hot young stars. These stars are emitting intense ultraviolet light, which causes nearby hydrogen gas to glow, and torrential stellar winds, which are carving out ridges, arcs, and filaments from the surrounding material.

N159 is located over 160,000 light-years away. It resides just south of the Tarantula Nebula, another massive star-forming complex within the LMC.

Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA

Release Date: Sept. 5, 2016

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