Superbubble

Credit: ESO/Manu Mejias

Stars blow a super bubble in nebula LHA 120-N 44 in this image from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope.

Explore the cavities within the swirling gas and dust of this nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. What stories or patterns do you see? Leave a note below.

The young star cluster NGC 1929 sculpts the inside of the nebula from which it was born. Torrential stellar winds and blistering ultraviolet radiation push out the gas and dust of the nebula; creating a huge bubble. This act frees the stars from their stellar cocoon. As the gas and dust move outward, they slam into the calm space surrounding the nebula. This heats the gas and causes it to glow with the reds and blues we see. Ultraviolet radiation from the new stars also causes the gas to glow.

NGC 1929 and LHA 120-N 44 are found in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The LMC is visible from the southern hemisphere as a faint glowing cloud in the sky. The cloud is an irregular dwarf galaxy found near the Milky Way Galaxy. It is located about 160,000 light-years away and is the third closest galaxy after the Sagittarius Dwarf and the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxies.