Hubble Captures Stars

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of the LH 95 region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that orbits the Milky Way. The image shows a glowing landscape of gas and dust heated and illuminated by a thriving population of young stars.

The most massive stars in the region, with at least three times the mass of the Sun, expel ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds that both heat and shape the surrounding hydrogen gas. Dark filaments stand out in sharp contrast against the glowing hydrogen where denser dust lanes resist erosion.

Researchers found developing stars still gathering material from the disks of gas and dust around them. In fact, LH 95 is home to an extraordinary 2,500 stars that have accumulated almost all of their critical mass but have not yet begun fusion reactions.

By studying these forming stars, researchers confirmed that the stars' accretion rate decreased with age, as expected. However, they also learned that accretion can persist for several million years, longer than sometimes assumed.