The Sculpted Wall (Westerlund 2)

Erosion on a cosmic scale. Westerlund 2 is a stellar nursery located 20,000 light-years away, where the interplay between massive stars and gas creates a dramatic, sculpted landscape. The central cluster is packed with some of the hottest, brightest, and most massive stars in our galaxy.

The radiation from these giants is pushing against the surrounding nebula, carving out sculpted walls and tangled clouds of orange and red gas. Clumped in the corner, these clouds appear like flames, while thinner wisps of blue and pink drift through the center. This image also captures the full population of 'brown dwarfs'—objects that blur the line between planet and star—revealing the diversity of creation in this chaotic region.

Scientific provenance

Editions

• Fine Art — museum-grade pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Metallic. Numbered edition of 50 per size, with a Numbered Certificate of Authenticity.
• Poster — pigment print on archival photo paper. Open edition.
• Framed or unframed — either edition can be framed in a slim black frame with shatter-resistant acrylic glazing, ready to hang (50 × 50 and 50 × 70 cm). Framed works ship free within the EU; unframed prints ship rolled in a protective tube.

Printed to order in our Vilnius studio on an Epson SureColor P20500 with UltraChrome PRO12 pigment inks, and dispatched within 5–7 business days. Each size is composed for its own proportions: we crop, we never stretch, and we never add or generate image content.

Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team. Licensed under CC BY 4.0; cropped and colour-managed for print. UniverseMuseum is an independent studio and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI or the Rubin Observatory.