SPACEPHOTOS

GLOW OF STAR FORMATION IN A NEIGHBOR galaxy. The saying ' marks the spot holds true in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image where Hubble- marks the location of a dramatic burst of star formation, very much like the Orion Nebula in our Milky Way galaxy, but on a vastly greater scale. Hubble- is a glowing gas cloud, one of the most active star-forming regions within galaxy NGC 6822. The name Hubble- does not refer to the shape of the gas cloud, but rather is derived from a catalog of objects in this particular galaxy. The ' is actually a Roman numeral designation. The galaxy lies in the constellation Sagittarius at a distance of only 1,630,000 light-years and is one of the Milky Way's closest neighbors. The intense star formation in Hubble- occurred only about 4 million years ago, a small fraction of the approimate 10 billion year age of the universe. Giant gas clouds in NGC 6822 have held a special attraction for astronomers since their discovery by the visual observer E. E. Barnard in 1881. Edwin P. Hubble, after whom the HST is named, used the then-new 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory in 1925 to make the first detailed photographic investigation of NGC 6822. The Hubble image reveals details too fine to be resolved from telescopes on the ground.