ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray, J. Maíz Apellániz
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image released on Sept. 12, 2025, features a cloudy starscape from an impressive star cluster. This scene is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy situated about 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa. With a mass equal to 10–20% of the mass of the Milky Way, the Large Magellanic Cloud is the largest of the dozens of small galaxies that orbit our galaxy.
The Large Magellanic Cloud is home to several massive stellar nurseries where gas clouds, like those strewn across this image, coalesce into new stars. Today’s image depicts a portion of the galaxy’s second-largest star-forming region, which is called N11. (The most massive and prolific star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Tarantula Nebula, is a frequent target for Hubble.) We see bright, young stars lighting up the gas clouds and sculpting clumps of dust with powerful ultraviolet radiation.
This image marries observations made roughly 20 years apart, a testament to Hubble’s longevity. The first set of observations, which were carried out in 2002–2003, capitalized on the exquisite sensitivity and resolution of the then-newly-installed Advanced Camera for Surveys. Astronomers turned Hubble toward the N11 star cluster to do something that had never been done before at the time: catalog all the stars in a young cluster with masses between 10% of the Sun’s mass and 100 times the Sun’s mass.
The second set of observations came from Hubble’s newest camera, the Wide Field Camera 3. These images focused on the dusty clouds that permeate the cluster, providing us with a new perspective on cosmic dust.
影像来源: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray, J. Maíz Apellániz
这张由NASA与欧洲航天局（ESA）合作的哈勃太空望远镜拍摄的图像于2025年9月12日发布，呈现出一幅缭绕着尘云的星空景象，来自一个壮观的恒星团。画面所在区域位于大麦哲伦星云（Large Magellanic Cloud）——一个距地球约16万光年的矮星系，位于剑鱼座（Dorado）与山案座（Mensa）之间。大麦哲伦星云的质量约为银河系的10%到20%，是环绕银河系运行的数十个卫星星系中最大的一颗。
在这片星云中，遍布着气体云团，如图中所见，这些云团是孕育新恒星的巨大恒星育儿室。今日图像展示的是该星系中第二大恒星形成区的一部分，编号为N11。（大麦哲伦星云中最大、恒星诞生最活跃的区域是著名的蜘蛛星云，也是哈勃频繁观测的目标。）在画面中，明亮而年轻的恒星点亮了气体云团，并以强烈的紫外辐射塑造着尘埃云块的形状。
这幅图像结合了大约相隔20年的两次观测数据，彰显了哈勃望远镜的卓越寿命与科学贡献。第一次观测发生在2002至2003年间，当时天文学家使用新安装的高级巡天相机（Advanced Camera for Surveys），利用其高灵敏度和高分辨率，对N11恒星团进行了前所未有的详细观测，首次实现了对一个年轻恒星团中质量从太阳质量的10%到100倍之间所有恒星的全面编目。
第二次观测则使用了哈勃目前最新的广角相机3（Wide Field Camera 3），聚焦于团中弥漫的尘埃云，为我们提供了关于宇宙尘埃的全新视角。
