Large Magellanic Cloud Superbubble in Nebula N44 Star Sticker

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series: An awesome photograph from deep space featuring a super bubble in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is a small satellite of our Milky Way galaxy around 160000 light years from us. The massive stars of this nebula produce intense radiation, expelling matter at high speeds, and race through their main stage finally to explode as supernovas. The stellar winds of charged hydrogen and other particles and the supernova shock waves carve out huge cavities called superbubbles in the surrounding gas. Blue shows hot regions created by these winds and shocks, while red shows where the dust and cooler gas are found. Yellow regions show where ultraviolet radiation from hot, young stars is causing gas in the nebula to glow. Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/U.Mich./S.Oey, IR: NASA/JPL, Optical: ESO/WFI/2.2-m