October 5, 2000: The Hubble telescope has peered deep into a
neighboring galaxy to reveal details of the formation of new
stars. Hubble's target was a newborn star cluster within the
Small Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of our Milky
Way. The picture shows young, brilliant stars cradled within a
nebula, or glowing cloud of gas, cataloged as N 81. The massive,
recently formed stars inside N 81 are losing material at a high
rate, sending out strong stellar winds (a stream of charged
particles) and shock waves of material and hollowing out a
cocoon within the surrounding nebula. The two most luminous
stars, seen in the Hubble image as a very close pair near the
center of N 81, emit a flood of ultraviolet radiation, causing
the nebula to glow through fluorescence. Outside the hot,
glowing gas is cooler material, consisting of hydrogen molecules
and dust. Normally this material is invisible, but some of it
can be seen in silhouette against the background of the nebula,
appearing as long dust lanes and a