Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, these fantastic, undulatingshapes lie within th stellarnursery know as M17,the Omega Nebula, some 5,500 light-years away in th nebula-rich constellation Sagittarius.The lumpy featuresin the dense cold gas and dust are illuminatedby stars off the upper left of the image and may themselvesrepresent sites of future star formation.Colors in the fog of surrounding hotter material indicat M17'schemical make up.The predominately green glow corresponds to abundant hydrogen,with trace sulfur and oxygen atoms contributing red and blue hues.The picture spans about 3 light-years and wa releasedto celebratethe thirteenth year of th Hubble Space Telescope'scosmic voyage of exploration.
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