Firestorm of Star Birth Seen In A Local Galaxy

FOR RELEASE: December 4, 2003

PHOTO NO.: STScI-PRC03-30

FIRESTORM OF STAR BIRTH SEEN IN A LOCAL GALAXY

This festively colorful nebula, called NGC 604, is one of the
largest known seething cauldrons of star birth in a nearby
galaxy. NGC 604 is similar to familiar star-birth regions in
our Milky Way galaxy, such as the Orion Nebula, but it is vastly
larger in extent and contains many more recently formed stars.
This monstrous star-birth region contains more than 200 brilliant
blue stars within a cloud of glowing gases some 1,300 light-years
across, nearly 100 times the size of the Orion Nebula.

The image of NGC 604 was assembled from observations taken with
Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in 1994, 1995, and 2001.
Color filters were used to isolate light emitted by hydrogen,
oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur atoms in the nebula and ultraviolet,
visible and infrared light from the stars within NGC 604 and the
nearby spiral arms of M33. Image processors from the Hubble
Heritage team at the Space Telescope Science Institute combined
these various filter images to create this color picture.

Image Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)
Acknowledgment: D. Garnett (U. Arizona), J. Hester (ASU), and
J. Westphal (Caltech)

To see and read more about NGC 604, please visit
http://hubblesite.org/news/2003/30
http://heritage.stsci.edu/2003/30

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA),
for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of
international cooperation between NASA and the European Space
Agency (ESA).