Battle of the Clusters

A massive star cluster is both triggering the birth of new stars and blowing away the source material for even more stars in this composite image from orbiting X-ray and infrared telescopes. A small portion of the large cluster is at left. Radiation from the cluster's stars is sculpting the cloud of gas and dust, known as RCW 108, that fills the rest of the image. A small star cluster, which forms the bright feature left of center, is embedded within this cloud. The stars were born as the nebula collapsed, perhaps as a result of the "push" from the stars in the larger cluster. But the bigger cluster is blowing away the remaining gas and dust, which may shut down the process of star formation. [NASA/CXC/CfA/S.Wolk et al; NASA/JPL-Caltech]