In the Heart of the Tarantula Nebula
In the heart of monstrous
Tarantula Nebula lies huge bubbles of energetic gas,
long filaments of dark dust, and unusually massive stars.
In the center of this heart, is a
knot of stars so dense that it was once thought to be a single star.
This star cluster, labeled as
R136 or NGC 2070,
is visible just above the center of the
featured image and home to a great number of hot young stars.
The energetic light from these stars continually ionizes nebula gas,
while their energetic particle wind blows
bubbles and defines intricate filaments.
The
representative-color picture, a digital synthesis of images from the
NASA/ESA orbiting
Hubble Space Telescope and
ESO's ground-based
New Technology Telescope, shows great details of the
LMC nebula's tumultuous center.
The Tarantula Nebula, also known as the
30 Doradus nebula, is one of the
largest
star-formation regions known, and has been creating
unusually strong episodes of
star formation every few million years.