A STAR IS BORN
© NASA
The Small Magellanic Cloud is a dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way from around 200,000 light years away. It spans around 7,000 light years across and can be seen in the Southern Hemisphere sky. Within this small galaxy is a star-forming nebula called NGC 602, shown in this image. The brilliant-blue stars at the centre of the image are freshly formed. They have blown apart the nebula to create wing-like pillars of cosmic dust. The dusty material that makes up these pillars will continue to feed the growing stars. This image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and will help to advance astronomers’ knowledge of how stars form in galaxies beyond our own.