This nebula, awash in baby stars, was recently photographed by NASA's
Hubble Space Telescope. Called NGC 604 by astronomers, this vast nebula
lies in the neighboring spiral galaxy M33, some 2.7 million light years
away in the constellation Triangulum. At the heart of the nebula are more
than 200 hot stars -- each much more massive than our sun -- that heat the
gaseous walls of the nebula making the gas fluoresce. Their light
highlights the nebula's three-dimensional shape, "like a lantern in a
cavern" as the NASA spin doctors aptly phrase it. This image and other
information gathered by the orbiting observatory will help astronomers
better understand star formation history as well as the starburst process
when a galaxy undergoes a "firestorm" of star formation.
Image courtesy of the Space Telescope Science Institute.