A striking new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows incredible details in the Tarantula Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region located in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
This Hubble image shows part of the Tarantula Nebula, a star-forming region some 163,000 light-years away in the constellation of Dorado. The color image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument in the ultraviolet, near-infrared, and optical parts of the spectrum. It is based on data obtained through four filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / C. Murray.
The Tarantula Nebula lies about 163,000 light-years away in the southern constellation of Dorado.
Also known as NGC 2070 or 30 Doradus, this nebula is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our closest galactic neighbors.
The bright glow of the nebula was first recorded by the French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in 1751.
At its heart are some of the most massive stars known, a few with up to 200 solar masses, making the region perfect for studying how gas clouds collapse under gravity to form new stars.
“The Tarantula Nebula is the largest and brightest star-forming region not just in the Large Magellanic Cloud, but in the entire group of nearby galaxies to which the Milky Way belongs,” the Hubble astronomers wrote in a statement.
“The nebula is home to the most massive stars known, some of which are roughly 200 times as massive as our Sun.”
“The scene pictured here is located away from the center of the nebula, where there is a super star cluster called R136, but very close to a rare type of star called a Wolf-Rayet star.”
“Wolf-Rayet stars are massive stars that have lost their outer shell of hydrogen and are extremely hot and luminous, powering dense and furious stellar winds,” they explained.
The Tarantula Nebula is a frequent target for Hubble, whose multiwavelength capabilities are critical for capturing sculptural details in the nebula’s dusty clouds.
“The data used to create this image come from an observing program called Scylla, named for a multi-headed sea monster from the Greek myth of Ulysses,” the astronomers said.
“The Scylla program was designed to complement another Hubble observing program called ULYSSES (Ultraviolet Legacy library of Young Stars as Essential Standards).”
“ULYSSES targets massive young stars in the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, while Scylla investigates the structures of gas and dust that surround these stars.”
