The James Webb Space Telescope's stunning view of the emission nebula N159 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. (Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, E. Sabbi, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)Acknowledgement: M. H. Özsaraç)

The NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope has captured a breathtaking view of a majestic star-forming region shining 161,000 light-years from Earth in a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way known as the Large Magellanic Cloud.

What is it?

The deep-space image reveals a 230-light-year-wide swathe of the glowing emission nebula N159, threaded with denser filaments of reddish molecular hydrogen that hide countless energetic young stars .

Ghostly blue clouds of ionized hydrogen gas (H II) glow in the center of the image, having been energized by the ultraviolet radiation pouring out from nearby stars, whose winds helped create the chaotic structure of the vast stellar nursery.

The ethereal pockets are surrounded by roiling orange clouds of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — a type of organic molecule that may…