A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope, released yesterday, shows a small portion of a region of swirling gas and dust near one of the most massive and eruptive stars in our galaxy.

The view shows a three light-year-wide portion of the Carina Nebula, which overall has a diameter of over 200 light-years.

Dark knots of dust and other structures have been carved by strong stellar winds, composed of charged particles moving rapidly, and high-energy radiation from the ultra-luminous variable star called Eta Carinae, located outside this image.

This image shows a region in the Carina Nebula between two large clusters of some of the most massive and hottest known stars.

The filamentary structure is caused by turbulence in the circumstellar gas, which in turn was caused by several stars shedding their outer layers, said Hubble astronomers. Cold gas mixes with hot gas, leaving a veil of denser, opaque material in the foreground. The chemical elements in the surroundings create a potential reservoir for new star formation. Areas in the brightest parts of the image at the top show elephant-trunk shaped dust clouds that may form into embryonic solar systems.

The nebula is 8,000 light-years from Earth.

Produced by the Hubble Heritage team, this color image is a composite of ultraviolet, visible, and infrared filters that have been assigned the colors blue, green, and red, respectively.

Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI); S. Casertano (STScI)