Wispy Dust and Gas Paint Portrait of Starbirth

*Description*: This active region of star formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), as photographed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, unveils wispy clouds of hydrogen and oxygen that swirl and mix with dust on a canvas of astronomical size. The LMC is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This particular region within the LMC, referred to as N 180B, contains some of the brightest known star clusters. The hottest blue stars can be brighter than a million of our Suns. Their intense energy output generates not only harsh ultraviolet radiation but also incredibly strong stellar "winds" of high-speed, charged particles that blow into space. The ultraviolet radiation ionizes the interstellar gas and makes it glow, while the winds can disperse the interstellar gas across tens or hundreds of light-years. Both actions are evident in N 180B. Also visible etched against the glowing hydrogen and oxygen gases are 100 light-year-long dust streamers that run the length of the nebula, intersecting the core of the cluster near the center of the image. Perpendicular to the direction of the dark streamers, bright orange rims of compact dust clouds appear near the bottom right of and top left corners of the image. These dark concentrations are on the order of a few light-years in size. Also visible among the dust clouds are so-called "elephant trunk" stalks of dust. If the pressure from the nearby stellar winds is great enough to compress this material and cause it to gravitationally contract, star formation might be triggered in these small dust clouds. These dust clouds are evidence that this is still a young star-formation region. This image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in 1998 using filters that isolate light emitted by hydrogen and oxygen gas. To create a color composite, the data from the hydrogen filter were colorized red, the oxygen filter were colorized blue, and a combination of the two filters averaged together was colorized green. The amalgamation yields pink and orange hydrogen clouds set amid a field of soft blue oxygen gas. Dense dust clouds block starlight and glowing gas from our view point. For more information, contact: You-Hua Chu, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, (phone) 217-333-5535, (e-mail) chu@astro.uiuc.edu, or Ray Villard, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., (phone) 410-338-4514, (e-mail) villard@stsci.edu, or Keith Noll, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., (phone) 410-338-1828, (e-mail) noll@stsci.edu Technical facts about this news release: About the Object Object Name: LMC N 180B, LHA 120-N 180B Object Description: Bright compact HII region in the Large Magellanic Cloud Position (J2000): R.A. 05h 48m 48s.65 Dec. -70° 04' 27 ".36 Constellation: Dorado Distance: Approximately 160,000 light-years (50 kiloparsecs) Dimensions: This image is 2.5 arcminutes (118 light-years or 36 parsecs) wide. About the Data Data Description: This image was created from HST data from the following proposal: 6698: Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana - Champaign), D. Bomans and K. Weis (Universitat Bochum), G. Garcia-Segura and M. Rosado (UNAM), A. Laval (Observatoire de Marseille), S. Points (Northwestern U.), H. Yang (U. Minnesota, Twin Cities). The main science team is composed of Y. Naz¯_¯_¯_ (Universite de Li¯_¯_¯_ge, Belgium) and Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana - Champaign). Instrument: WFPC2 Exposure Date(s): April 29, 1998 Exposure Time: 37 minutes Filters: F656N (Halpha) and F502N ([O III]) About the Image Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Release Date: August 11, 2006 Orientation/Scale: N 180B in the Large Magellanic Cloud [ http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2006/41/images/a/formats/compass_large_web.jpg ] What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. This active region of star formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), as photographed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, unveils wispy clouds of hydrogen and oxygen that swirl and mix with dust on a canvas of astronomical size. The LMC is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This particular region within the LMC, referred to as N 180B, contains some of the brightest known star clusters. This image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in 1998 using filters that isolate light emitted by hydrogen and oxygen gas. *News Release Number:*: STScI-2006-41a

NASA Identifier: SPD-HUBBLE-STScI-2006-41a