Ultraviolet neighbors

A dark brown, cosmic cloud is studded by a collection of bluish-purple stars. Dozens of these stars are scattered throughout the scene, but they are most dense in the bottom half of the image. Other much smaller stars and galaxies, points of light in various colors, fill the background of the image.

The Small Magellanic Cloud is one of the closest galaxies to our Milky Way: it’s “only” 210,000 light-years away. (For comparison, the Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across.) Nestled within the Small Magellanic Cloud is this spectacular star cluster, which is unleashing light and energy into the nebula surrounding it.

This photo from our orbiting Hubble telescope combines observations of the star cluster in ultraviolet and visible light; these blazing blue stars are giving off UV rays which are then picked up by Hubble’s delicate instruments. Studying this star cluster in ultraviolet is helping scientists learn how the birth of stars shapes the interstellar space around them.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and C. Murray (Space Telescope Science Institute); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)