Zooming in on the glowing gas cloud LHA 120-N55 in the Large Magellanic Cloud

This zoom sequence takes us on a journey of 160 000 light-years to one of our neighbouring galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud. In the final image, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), light from blazing blue stars energises the gas left over from the stars’ recent formation to create a strikingly colourful emission nebula, called LHA 120-N55, in which the stars are adorned with a mantle of glowing gas. Astronomers study these beautiful displays to learn about the conditions in places where new stars develop.