NGC 604: Giant Stellar Nursery
Explanation:
Stars are sometimes born in the midst of chaos.
About 3 million years ago in the nearby galaxy
M33, a large cloud of gas
spawned dense internal knots which gravitationally
collapsed to form stars.
NGC 604 was so large, however, it could form enough stars to make a
globular cluster.
Many young stars from this cloud are
visible in the
above image from the
Hubble Space Telescope,
along with what is left of the initial
gas cloud.
Some stars were so massive they have already
evolved and exploded in a
supernova.
The
brightest stars that are left emit light
so energetic that they create one of the largest cloud of
ionized hydrogen gas known,
comparable to the
Tarantula Nebula in our
Milky Way's close neighbor, the
Large Magellanic Cloud.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
