The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), located only 160,000 light-years from Earth, is the nearest galaxy outside the Milky Way in which stars are actively being formed. With its high resolution, the Hubble Space Telescope can study details of star formation in the LMC as easily as ground-based telescopes can study stellar formation within our own Milky Way galaxy. N11 is the second largest star-forming region in LMC. It is only surpassed in the size and activity by "the king of stellar nurseries," 30 Doradus, located opposite N11.
The Hubble image shows a detailed slice through a dynamic portion of N11B, in which spectacular glowing gas, dark dust clouds, and young, hot stars can all be seen. To the upper left of the image is a collection of blue- and white-colored stars that astronomers classify as belonging to types O and B. These stars are extremely hot, and some of them are among the most massive stars known anywhere in the universe. Just below the grouping of hot stars is an area of brightly emitting hydrogen gas, illuminated by the nearby hot stars to the upper left in the picture.
Further to the right of the image are several smaller dark clouds of interstellar dust with odd and intriguing shapes, seen silhouetted against the glowing interstellar gas. Several of these dark clouds are bright-rimmed because they are illuminated and being evaporated due to the action of radiation from neighboring hot stars.
The region around the cluster of hot stars in the image is relatively clear of gas, because the stellar winds and radiation from the stars have pushed the gas away. When this gas collides with and compresses surrounding dense clouds, the clouds can collapse under their own gravity and start to form new stars. The cluster of new stars in N11B may have been formed this way, as it is located on the rim of the large central interstellar bubble of the N11 complex. The stars in N11B are now beginning to clear away their natal cloud, and are carving new bubbles in turn. Yet another new generation of stars is now being born in N11B, inside the dark dust clouds in the Hubble image. The image thus illustrates a perfect case of so-called sequential star formation in a nearby galaxy - new star birth triggered by previous-generation massive stars.
This image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 using filters that isolate light emitted by oxygen and hydrogen gas. The science team, led by astronomers You-Hua Chu (University of Illinois) and Yäel Nazé (Universite de Liège, Belgium) are comparing these images of N11B, taken in 1999, with similar regions elsewhere in the LMC. This color composite of N11B was co-produced and is being co-released by the Hubble European Space Agency Information Center (HEIC) and the Hubble Heritage Project (AURA/STScI).
Credits
NASA, ESA, The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI), and HEIC;Acknowledgment: Y.-H. Chu (U. Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) and Yäel Nazé (U. Liège, Belgium)
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | N11B |
| Object Description | H II Region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) |
| R.A. Position | 04h 56m 51.96s |
| Dec. Position | -66° 24' 32.0" |
| Constellation | Dorado |
| Distance | Approximately 160,000 light-years (50 kiloparsecs) |
| Dimensions | This image is roughly 2.2 arcminutes (105 light-years or 32 parsecs) wide. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | This image was created from HST data from proposal : Y.-H. Chu (U. Illinois at Urbana - Champaign), D. Bomans and K. Weis (Universitat Bochum), G. Garcia-Segura and M. Rosado (UNAM), A. Laval (Observatoire de Marseille), S. Points (Northwestern U.), H. Yang (U. Minnesota - Twin Cities) Y. Naze (Universite de Liege, Belgium) is also a science collaborator. |
| Instrument | HST>WFPC2 |
| Exposure Dates | May 12, 1999, Exposure Time: 37 minutes |
| Filters | F656N (Halpha), F502N ([O III]) |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
