A unique peanut-shaped cocoon of dust, called a reflection nebula,
surrounds a cluster of young, hot stars in this view from NASA’s
Hubble Space Telescope. The “double bubble,” called N30B, is inside
a larger nebula. The larger nebula, called DEM L 106, is embedded
in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way
lying 160,000 light-years away. The wispy filaments of DEM L 106
fill much of the image. Hubble captures the glow of fluorescing
hydrogen and sulfur, as well as the brilliant blue-white colors
of the hot stars.

The very bright star at the top of the picture, called Henize S22,
illuminates the dusty cocoon like a flashlight shining on smoke
particles. This searing supergiant star is only 25 light-years
from the N30B nebula. Viewed from N30B, the brilliant star would
appear 250 times as bright as the planet Venus does in Earth’s sky.

Lowell Observatory astronomer M.S. Oey and University of Illinois
astronomer Y.-H. Chu are members of a science team studying DEM L 106.
Along with their collaborators, Oey and Chu have made a clever use
of the reflection nebula around N30B. By obtaining spectroscopic
observations at various points across the nebula, they can study
the spectrum of S22 from different angles. Remarkably, they have
found that the star’s spectrum changes with the viewing angle,
suggesting that the star is surrounded by a flattened disk of
gas expelled from its equator.

Astronomers R. Davies, K. Elliot, and J. Meaburn, who created the
“DEM” catalogs of both the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds,
originally cataloged DEM L 106 in the 1970’s. N30B was discovered in
the 1950s by astronomer K. Henize, who later became a NASA astronaut.

DEM L 106 was imaged with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2
(WFPC2). Hubble data taken in 1998 were combined with data taken by
the Hubble Heritage Team in late 2001.

Credits: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: M.S. Oey (Lowell Observatory) and Y.-H. Chu (U. of
Illinois)

NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information, please contact
Dr. Sally Oey, Lowell Observatory, 1400 West Mars Hill Rd.,
Flagstaff, AZ 86001, (phone) 928-774-3358 x213,
(fax) 928-774-6296, (e-mail) Sally.Oey@lowell.edu or

Dr. Keith Noll, Hubble Heritage Team, Space Telescope Science
Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218,
(phone) 410-338-1828, (fax) 410-338-4579, (e-mail) noll@stsci.edu.

Electronic images and additional information are available at:

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA),
for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of
international cooperation between NASA and the European Space
Agency (ESA).