FOR RELEASE: August 7, 1996

PHOTO NO.: STScI-PRC96-27


          GIANT STARBIRTH REGION IN NEIGHBORING GALAXY

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image (right) of a vast nebula 
called NGC 604, which lies in the neighboring spiral galaxy M33, 
located 2.7 million light-years away in the constellation 
Triangulum.

This is a site where new stars are being born in a spiral arm 
of the galaxy.  Though such nebulae are common in galaxies, 
this one is particularly large, nearly 1,500 light-years across.  
The nebula is so vast it is easily seen in ground-based 
telescopic images (left). 

At the heart of NGC 604 are over 200 hot stars, much more 
massive than our Sun (15 to 60 solar masses). They heat the 
gaseous walls of the nebula making the gas fluoresce.  Their
light also highlights the nebula's three-dimensional shape,
like a lantern in a cavern.  By studying the physical structure 
of a giant nebula, astronomers may determine how clusters of 
massive stars affect the evolution of the interstellar medium 
of the galaxy.  The nebula also yields clues to its star 
formation history and will improve understanding of the 
starburst process when a galaxy undergoes a "firestorm" of 
star formation. 

The image was taken on January 17, 1995 with Hubble's Wide Field 
and Planetary Camera 2.  Separate exposures were taken in 
different colors of light to study the physical properties of 
the hot gas (17,000 degrees Fahrenheit, 10,000 degrees Kelvin).

Credit:  Hui Yang (University of Illinois) and NASA.

Ground-based image courtesy of Palomar Observatory, Caltech and 
the STScI Digitized Sky Survey (AURA). 

Image files in GIF and JPEG format and captions may be accessed 
on Internet via anonymous ftp from oposite.stsci.edu in /pubinfo.

                           GIF                 JPEG
PRC96-27  NGC 604 in M33   gif/NGC604.gif      jpeg/NGC604.jpg

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