This false-colour view of the Large Magellanic Cloud is a composite of images taken by AKARI at far-infrared wavelengths (60, 90 and 140 microns).

The Large Magellanic Cloud is a neighbour galaxy to the Milky Way. Interstellar clouds in which new stars are forming are distributed over the entire galaxy. The bright region in the bottom-left is known as the 'Tarantula Nebula' and is a very productive factory of stars. This figure is a part of a data set covering a sky portion of about 17 000 by 17 000 light-years. Credit: ESA.