14 DAY TRIAL // The European Southern Observatory is showcasing a very interesting photo of two different yet similar areas in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the bigger dwarf galaxies that neighbor our own.
"The pink-tinged cloud on the right, NGC 2014, is a glowing cloud of mostly hydrogen gas. It contains a cluster of hot young stars. The energetic radiation from these new stars strips electrons from the atoms within the surrounding hydrogen gas, ionising it and producing a characteristic red glow," ESO explained.
As for its sibling, NGC2020, it gains its blue color through a similar process. A bright young star, visible in the middle, is pushing radiation at a fast pace, driving the gas around it away, creating the pocket, and ionizing the oxygen in the gas, giving the cloud its color.
The image was captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph (FORS2) instrument which is sensitive to the visible and near ultra-violet spectrum.