heic0514: Young stars sculpt gas with powerful outflows

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope view shows one of the most dynamic and intricately detailed star-forming regions in space, located 210 000 light-years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.

At the centre of the region is a brilliant star cluster called NGC 346, a dramatic structure of arched, ragged filaments with a distinct ridge surrounding the cluster.

This image of NGC 346 and its surrounding star formation region was taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Two broadband filters that contribute starlight from visible and near-infrared wavelengths (shown in blue and green, respectively) have been combined with light from the nebulosity that has passed though a narrow-band hydrogen-alpha filter (shown in red).