Dragon Mist
by CritterKeeper on Nov.05, 2009, under Fantasy Creatures
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration
A brownish dragon rises from the blue mist in this image of a star–forming area by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
This deep view of LH 95 in the Large Magellanic Cloud shows small young stars forming with giant blue stars. From Earth, astronomers could study the bright blue giant stars but with the Hubble image, they can also peer deeper and study the younger smaller stars. The LMC offers scientists a different environment to study star formation. The LMC is rich in hydrogen but not the heavier elements that are present in the Milky Way. In this hydrogen-rich cloud, stars can grow very large. The largest stars in LH 95 are about three times larger than the Sun. The blue stars generate strong solar winds and flood the surrounding nebula with ultraviolet radiation. This causes the bluish glow we see in the Hubble image.
The Large Magellanic Cloud, a small dwarf galaxy close to our own Milky Way Galaxy, has hundreds of star–forming areas. Wander about the image and see if you can find the brown dust, glowing blue gas and the hundreds of background galaxies. Do you find any patterns in the gas and dust of this nebula?
The Large Magellanic Cloud is the fourth largest galaxy of the Local Group of galaxies. Andromeda Galaxy is the largest followed by the Milky Way and M33 the Triangulum Galaxy. The LMC is located about 160,000 light years from Earth toward the southern constellations of Mensa, the Table, and Dorado, the Dolphin.
:blue giants, Hubble Space Telescope, Large Magellanic Cloud, LH 95, Milky Way Galaxy, NASA, star formation
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