At the centre of the photo above, a monster young star 200,000 times brighter than our Sun is blasting powerful ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds, carving out a fantasy landscape of ridges, cavities, and mountains of gas and dust.
This mayhem is all happening at the heart of the Lagoon Nebula, a vast stellar nursery located 4,000 light-years away that is visible in binoculars simply as a smudge of light with a bright core.
The image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Originally published by Cosmos as The Lagoon Nebula
Cosmos
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