HUBBLE IMAGE OF BABY STARS, 1998-06-11 (photo)

The Hubble Space Telescope has snapped an image of a ring of baby stars circling the heart of a nearby galaxy. The new stars, stellar infants less than 5 million years old, are in flower-like purplish clusters around the center of galaxy NGC 4314 about 40 million light-years from Earth. NGC 4314, in the constellation Coma Berenices, is one of the nearest examples of a galaxy with a ring of young stars around its core, and therefore is a great laboratory for studying star formation, scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute said in a statement. The image snapped by the Hubble telescope was presented to astronomers at a meeting of the American Astronomic Society in San Diego, California June 11. Image at left is from the McDonald Observatory. CM/CLH/