August 16, 1996
You are a way for the cosmos to know itself, Carl Sagan once said. On your birthday, the cosmos got to know itself a little better.
NGC 604: Giant Stellar Nursery in M33
Birthday · August 16, 1996
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APOD published August 16, 1996. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
The nebula cataloged as NGC 604 is a giant star forming region, 1500 light years across, in the nearby spiral galaxy, M33. Seen here in a snapshot by the Hubble Space Telescope, over 200 newly formed, hot, massive, stars are scattered within a cavern-like, gaseous, interstellar cloud. The stars irradiate the gas with energetic ultraviolet light stripping electrons from atoms and exciting them - producing a characteristic nebular glow. The details of the nebula's structure hold clues to the mysteries of star formation and its effect on the evolution of galaxies.