Did someone complain about noisy neighbors? In the heart of galaxy M33, about 2.7 million light-years away in the constellation Triangulum, astronomers have discovered a wall-like structure - actually a dense, linear zone of gas and dust (the reverse “J” shape in the center of the image - between an active star-making region and a quieter patch of the galaxy. The zone does indeed seem to act like a wall, because the right side is populated by about 200 young, massive, and still-growing stars, while the left side hosts a mostly quiescent area of older stars and supernova remnants. Astronomers are now trying to determine whether the wall caused the separate neighborhoods or was created by them. (Image: (x-ray) NASA/CXC/CfA/R. Tuellmann et al. (optical) NASA/AURA/STScI)
