The Rosette Nebula is a cloud of dust containing enough gas and dust to make about 10,000 stars like our Sun. In the centre of the nebula is a cluster of hot, bright young stars. These are warming up the surrounding gas and dust, making it appear bluer. The small, bright white regions are cocoons of dust in which huge stars are currently being born. These “protostars”, each one of which will probably become a star up to ten times more massive than the Sun, are heating up the surrounding gas and dust and making it clow brighter. The smaller, redder dots on the left side and near the centre of the image also contain protostars, but these are smaller, and will go on to form stars much like our Sun. Just as the centre of the nebula contains bright young stars, in a few tens or hundreds of millions of years these stars will have died, but the protostars will have evolved into fully-fledged stars in their own right. In this way, the star formation will move outwards through the nebula. Hubble Palette of SHO data from Telescope Live.
Located in the constellation Hydra, this colorful, swirling spiral galaxy is known as M83. A "starburst" galaxy, M83 is considerably smaller than our own galaxy but is producing stars at a much faster rate. The pink clouds of hydrogen gas that dot the galaxy's spiral arms are the nurseries where new stars are being born. The blue, grainy clumps mixed in with these star-forming regions are clusters of hot, young stars that have blown away the surrounding gas with their fierce ultraviolet radiation. Some of these young stars are only about a million years old. The yellow glow closer to the center of the galaxy comes from more mature stars that have lived for 100 million years or more. Data from Telescope Live.
