Hubble spies galactic 'blue light special'

Cosmic collision might have shaped galaxy NGC 7673

(CNN) -- A tumultuous galaxy, triggered by the ignition of millions of young stars, explodes into blue light in a new picture from the Hubble Space Telescope.

While the reason for the appearance of the tattered spiral galaxy remains unknown, the answer could help astronomers tackle some intriguing questions about the universe.

Scattered spots of blue light reveal star nurseries in NGC 7673, a spiral galaxy about 150 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.

Each of the bluish clusters consists of thousands of infant stars, which burn much bluer than older and redder stars. They give off furious amounts of radiation, each emitting 100 times more ultraviolet light than the Tarantula Nebula, the biggest region of star formation in the neighborhood of our Milky Way galaxy.

As they continue to investigate the galaxy, astronomical detectives could shed light on old cosmic mysteries.

NGC 7673 could demonstrate "the type of vigorous star formation that we think may have taken place in the early universe," Nicole Homeier of the European Southern Observatory, said Monday.

"Our most pressing questions are: What has triggered this enormous burst of star formation, and how will the galaxy evolve in the future?"

Hubble scientists theorize that the young star clusters might have been set ablaze from a collision or near miss with another galaxy.

Another possibility is that excessive amounts of gas in the galactic interior formed large clumps that combusted outward into stellar fireworks.

Homeier, who with European and U.S. colleagues released the composite image Monday, said astronomers might figure out the puzzle within the decade.

"For many years we have only been able to see the star-forming regions as fuzzy clumps from ground-based telescopes," she said in a statement.

"Now, with Hubble, we can study how these clumps may have originated and how this 'starburst galaxy' relates to the younger star-forming galaxy that we see in the early universe."

The image was composed of three Hubble images taken in the late 1990s. In early March, NASA astronauts upgraded the vision of the Hubble Space Telescope, promising a flurry of new discoveries in the cosmos.