NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

NGC 604: Giant Stellar Nursery in M33

The nebula cataloged as NGC 604 is a giant star forming region, 1500 light years across, in the nearby spiral galaxy, M33 [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Seen here in a snapshot [ http://www.stsci.ed…] by the Hubble Space Telescope, over 200 newly formed, hot, massive, stars are scattered within a cavern-like, gaseous, interstellar cloud. The stars irradiate the gas with energetic ultraviolet light [ http://fondue.gsfc.…] stripping electrons from atoms and exciting them - producing a characteristic nebular glow [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. The details [ http://adsabs.harva…nph-bib_query?1996Ap J...456..174H&db_key =AST ] of the nebula's structure hold clues to the mysteries of star formation [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] and its effect on the evolution of galaxies [ ftp://crux.astr.ua.…].

H. Yang (UIUC [ http://www.uiuc.edu]), J. Hester (ASU [ http://www.asu.edu/…]), NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/]

M33

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Crux

Snapshot

Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

New General Catalogue (NGC)

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap960816