NASA's Hubble catalogs half a million stars near a mysterious "superbubble" in space

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope surveyed nebula N44, or LHA 120-N44, in the Large Magellanic Cloud — the largest of the small galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, located roughly 160,000 light-years away. The nebula's striking central void is a "superbubble," spanning roughly 210 by 140 light-years, blown by the powerful stellar winds and explosive supernovae of the stars at its center. When those stars swept away the surrounding gas, it formed a shell around the superbubble — and new stars are now forming within that shell. Hubble's survey cataloged nearly half a million stars in the region, including close to 30,000 that have not yet begun fusing hydrogen into helium, making N44 a useful target for studying exactly how long the process of star formation takes. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Gouliermis