Stellar Slug

Credit: ESA/Hub­ble & NASA

A stel­lar slug-shape rises out of the vast stel­lar nurs­ery of NGC 2174 in this image from NASA’s Hub­ble Space Tele­scope.

Explore this stel­lar nurs­ery. Leave a note below and tell us what shapes you see in this col­or­ful image?

As stars begin to shine, they blow off their cocoon of gas and dust. Intense stel­lar winds from fiery, new stars shape the great clouds of hydro­gen gas. You can fol­low the points of the “slug” toward the stars, which are out of the image, that are shap­ing this cloud. Scorch­ing ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion from the new stars excites the hydro­gen gas caus­ing it to glow. Other ele­ments within the star cloud glow with dif­fer­ent col­ors cre­at­ing a daz­zling rain­bow while dark dust clouds are sil­hou­et­ted against the glow­ing gas.

NGC 2174 lies about 6,400 light-years from Earth toward the con­stel­la­tion Orion, the Hunter. Another unre­lated and more famous stel­lar nurs­ery, the Great Neb­ula, is found within Orion as well.