New images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveal LHA 120-N44, an impressive nebula located about 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
This Hubble image shows emission nebula LHA 120-N44. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Gouliermis.
LHA 120-N44 (N44 for short) is located approximately 160,000 light-years away in the constellation Sera.
“N44 is dominated by two features: a vast central cavity and a dense, dusty shell of gas,” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.
“The central cavity is a ‘super bubble’ with a diameter of approximately 210 x 140 light years.”
“The bright stars at the center of the cavity are responsible for its creation. Through powerful stellar winds and explosive supernovae, these stars shed much of the gas from which they were born.”
“When the stars in N44’s central cluster swept away this gas, the ejected gas formed a shell around the superbubble.”
New stars are forming within this compressed shell of gas, making N44 an interesting target for researchers studying the process of star formation.
Astronomers used Hubble to catalog about 500,000 stars in the region. Among them are about 30,000 that are still in the early stages of hydrogen fusion.
“Each feature within the broader star-forming complex N44 was cataloged by astronomer Karl Henise in the 1950s,” the researchers said.
“One of the features is a small bubble near the top right corner of this image, cataloged as N44F.”
“N44F is an interstellar bubble blown by the intense stellar wind of a single hot, massive star.”
“As this previously published close-up of Hubble shows, the star’s fierce winds and radiation sculpted the surrounding bubble, creating a column of dusty gas.”
Source: www.sci.news
