Star-Forming Region in NGC 4214

This image reveals episodes of star formation that are occurring across the face of the nearby galaxy NGC 4214. Located some 13 million light-years from Earth, NGC 4214 is currently forming clusters of new stars from its interstellar gas and dust. In the Hubble image, we can see a sequence of steps in the formation and evolution of stars and star clusters. NGC 4214 contains a multitude of faint stars covering most of the frame, but the picture is dominated by filigreed clouds of glowing gas surrounding bright stellar clusters. The youngest of these star clusters are located at the lower right of the picture, where they appear as about half a dozen bright clumps of glowing gas. Each cloud fluoresces because of the strong ultraviolet light emitted from the embedded young stars, which have formed within them due to gravitational collapse of the gas. Young, hot stars have a whitish to bluish color in the Hubble image because of their high surface temperatures, ranging from 10,000 up to about 50,000 degrees Celsius.