Two glowing space-clouds, one red and the other blue, were captured in a detailed photograph.
The clouds were observed in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a star-forming satellite galaxy, a European Southern Observatory (ESO) press release reported.
Bright red NGC 2014, and the neighboring blue NGC 2020 were "sculpted" by stellar winds. These winds were most likely spawned from ultra-hot newborn stars. The stars radiated gas, which could have caused the colorful glow.
ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) captured the images of the neighboring gas clouds, but the phenomenon can be seen with the naked eye. An area of the southern constellation of Dorado looks blurry, as if there was a cloud in the Earth's atmosphere covering it.
NGC 2014, the red cloud, is composed of mostly hydrogen gas. Inside the cloud lives a cluster of "hot young stars." The stars produce electronic radiation, which strips electrons off the hydrogen gas' atoms. The ionization process causes the distinct red glow.
The stars also give off strong stellar winds, which will eventually push surrounding gas away.
An extremely hot star located slightly outside of the main cluster could be creating the wind. The blue cloud surrounds the star like a bubble. Its blue color could be a product of oxygen ionization instead of hydrogen.
