The birth of stars
This colour composite image of the nebula RCW120 shows an expanding bubble of ionised gas 10 light years across. It causes surrounding material to collapse into dense clumps from which stars are born. The original images taken with the LABOCA camera on the 12-metre Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope.
(Image: ESO/APEX/DSS2/SuperCosmos/Deharveng (LAM)/Zavagno (LAM))
This colour composite image of the nebula RCW120 shows an expanding bubble of ionised gas 10 light years across. It causes surrounding material to collapse into dense clumps from which stars are born. The original images taken with the LABOCA camera on the 12-metre Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope.
(Image: ESO/APEX/DSS2/SuperCosmos/Deharveng (LAM)/Zavagno (LAM))
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) operates some of the world's most advanced ground-based telescopes, including the Very Large Telescope array (VLT) and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at Paranal Observatory in the Atacama desert, Chile. They recently posted their top 100 images:
