An active stellar nursery glows with a deep reddish hue in this image of NGC 2467, a booming complex of star formation in the southern constellation of Puppis.

Observed by the Gemini South telescope at Cerro Pachón in Chile, the NGC 2467 complex sits about 17,000 light-years away. One light-year, the distance light travels in a single year, is about 5.8 trillion miles (9.4 trillion kilometers).

The image displays a striking array of features that illustrate multiple phases of star birth, including a cluster of young stars dominates the left edge of the field of view. In the lower right, young stars are emitting hot radiation, exciting the nearby gas and causing it to glow, which reveals even denser gas and dust clouds. Dust lanes and dark globules mark sites of future star formation. 

Astronomers say it's likely that several million years ago this region resembled the currently active star birth regions seen in the right half of the image. The “wall” of denser material that dominates the right side of the image shows ultraviolet radiation from nearby stars removing material -through a process called photo-evaporation - and revealing underlying dense clouds that likely harbor forming stars.

At bottom left a star can be seen exciting the cocoon of gas and dust from which it likely emerged.

This image was obtained on December 5, 2004 using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) instrument on Gemini South. It was released this week at the American Astronomical Society in San Diego, California as the first of a completely new gallery of Gemini Observatory images.

The new gallery can be found by clicking here.

-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: Gemini Observatory/Travis Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage

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