ESO Releases Surreal Image of Star Birth and Death in Large Magellanic Cloud

Wednesday the European Space Observatory released a new image of the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our closest galactic neighbors. The new image, captured by the ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile, shows swirls of gas clouds and dust where hot new stars are being born and sculpting their cosmic landscape into interesting shapes.

But for as much cosmic life beginning in the galaxy, there is also great stellar death; the image reveals the filaments created by a supernova explosion.

The Large Magellanic Cloud is about 160,000 light years away from Earth in the constellation Dorado. The Cloud is quite active, producing new stars with enough intensity that some of them are bright enough to be seen from the ground on Earth with the naked eye, the ESO said in a news release.

Focusing on the Cloud's star-producing emission nebula NCG 2035, the Very Large Telescope captured images of gas clouds glowing due to the energetic radiation given off by young stars.

"This radiation strips electrons from atoms within the gas, which eventually recombine with other atoms and release light. Mixed in with the gas are dark clumps of dust that absorb rather than emit light, creating weaving lanes and dark shapes across the nebula," the ESO wrote in a statement.

Supernova explosions can be observed in the image's left side. The explosions are so bright that they can sometimes outshine the entire host galaxy before fading from view.

The ESO points out that the image may not convey the enormous size of the gas clouds, which are several hundred light years across. The clouds' host galaxy, however, is not very big compared to the Milky Way galaxy, which is about 10 times larger.