Deep inside the Milky Way's companion galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud lies a vast complex of stars, gas, and dust. From our vantage point, 170,000 light years away, we see it as a softly-glowing pinkish brain-shaped cloud studded with stars -- a description that grossly underdescribes the tremendous beauty of the newly-released Hubble view of it:
Oh, my. Click it to get a bigger version, or go here to get a 26 Mb 4000x4000 pixel version.
What a staggeringly lovely image! And so much to see. More than you'd expect... but that's part of a surprise I'll have for you at the end of this post. Bear with me, it's worth it. Until then, let me show you a thing or two... LHA 120-N 11B, as this object is formally called (or just N11B for short), is a giant cloud of star-forming gas, containing as much as 100,000 times ...
