EMBARGOED UNTIL: 1:00 a.m (EST) March 9, 2000

Hubble Surveys Dying Stars in Nearby Galaxy

From ground-based telescopes, the glowing gaseous debris surrounding dying, sun-like stars in a nearby galaxy, called the Large Magellanic Cloud, appear as small, shapeless dots of light. But through the "eyes" of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, these bright dots take on a variety of shapes, from round- to pinwheel-shaped clouds of gas.

Credits for the Hubble images:
NASA; L. Stanghellini, R. Shaw, C. Blades, and M. Mutchler, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.; and B. Balick, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash.

Credits for the copyrighted image of the Large Magellanic Cloud:
D. Malin, Anglo-Australian Observatory/Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, Scotland