An open cluster of stars shines through misty, cocoon-like gas clouds in this Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 460.
NGC 460 is located in a region of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that orbits the Milky Way, and contains a number of young star clusters and nebulas.
The hydrogen clouds in the region are ionized by the radiation of nearby stars, causing them to glow.
The Hubble image, created from six overlapping observations, aims to understand how gravitational forces between interacting galaxies foster bursts of star formation.