Ionized oxygen

A sparkling blue dwarf galaxy called Markarian 178 shines just 13 million light-years away, filled with hot young stars and rare massive stars. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Annibali, S. Hong

This tiny blue galaxy glows with rare, powerful stars

The image shows an unusual combination of blue light from hot young stars with red emission regions from ionized gas, suggesting a burst of star formation likely triggered by a recent gravitational interaction.