This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a maelstrom of gas and dust within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring dwarf galaxy to our own Milky Way.

This stormy scene shows a nebula known as N159, which spans about 150 light-years across.

This spectacular region of star formation is located approximately 160,000 light-years away in the constellation of Dorado.

It resides just south of the Tarantula Nebula, another massive star-forming complex within the Large Magellanic Cloud.

N159 is an example of a so-called HII region, a region of ionized hydrogen (HII) surrounded by cooler, neutral hydrogen.

It contains many hot young stars. These stars are emitting intense UV light, which causes nearby hydrogen gas to glow, and torrential stellar winds, which are carving out ridges, arcs, and filaments from the surrounding material.

At the heart of this cosmic cloud lies the Papillon Nebula, a butterfly-shaped region of nebulosity.

This small, dense object is classified as a high-excitation blob, and is thought to be tightly linked to the early stages of massive star formation.

This color image (hi-res version) was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).

Two filters – the green filter F555W and the near-infrared filter F814W – were used to sample various wavelengths.

The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.