The center of the Swan Nebula, or M17, a hotbed of newly born stars wrapped in colorful blankets of glowing gas and cradled in an enormous cold, dark hydrogen cloud. The region of the nebula shown in this picture is about 3500 times wider than our Solar System. The nebula resides 5500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. This picture was taken by the newly installed Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The ACS made this observation on 1 and 2 April 2002. The color image is constructed from four separate images taken in these filters: blue, near infrared, hydrogen alpha, and doubly ionised oxygen.