Number 325 (Story #3), June 11, 1997 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein TRIGGERED STAR FORMATION, a process whereby particles cast off by an energetic massive star help to compress nearby gas into globs that ignite into stardom of their own, has been directly imaged in sharp detail for the first time. A Hubble Space Telescope picture shows a mother star (in the nearby Cone Nebula) and a brood of six offspring stars at distances of less than a tenth of a light year away. The faint youngsters, which can't be glimpsed at visible wavelengths because of a swaddling blanket of dust, can be seen by Hubble's near infrared (NICMOS) camera. The picture was released at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society this week in North Carolina. (Hubble press release, 9 June; figures on the web at Space Telescope Science Institute)