Thing of mystery and beauty.
This complex nebula is filled with glowing gases, lanes of dust, and stars of all ages—but what interests astronomers the most is what ISN'T there. One of its most distinctive features is the dark, starry gap called a “superbubble,” visible in this image in the upper central region.
The hole is about 250 light-years wide and its presence is still something of a mystery. Stellar winds expelled by massive stars in the bubble's interior may have driven away the gas, but this is inconsistent with measured wind velocities in the bubble. Another possibility, since the nebula is filled with massive stars that would expire in titanic explosions, is that the expanding shells of old supernovae sculpted the cosmic cavern.
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