A sea monster and a Tarantula

A nebula. The top-left is dense with layers of fluffy pink and greenish clouds. Long strands of green clouds stretch out from here; a faint layer of translucent blue dust combines with them to create a three-dimensional scene. A sparse network of dark dust clouds in the foreground adds reddish-black patches atop the nebula. Blue-white and orange stars, from our galaxy and beyond, are spread amongst the clouds. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray

A scene from a star-forming factory shines in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week. This Hubble picture captures incredible details in the dusty clouds in a star-forming region called the Tarantula Nebula. What’s possibly the most amazing aspect of this detailed image is that this nebula isn’t even in our galaxy. Instead, it’s in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is located about 160 000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa.

The Large Magellanic Cloud is the largest of the dozens of small satellite galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. 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 Tarantula 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 centre 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.

This 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 programme called Scylla, named for a multi-headed sea monster from the Greek myth of Ulysses. The Scylla programme was designed to complement another Hubble observing programme 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.

Source: ESA/Hubble/potw

---

Cosmic cloudscape

Tarantula Nebula

A portion of a nebula, made of variously-coloured layers of dust clouds. One upper layer is dark reddish dust which is dense and obscures light, in places so dense that it appears black. A middle layer is pale clouds that are thick like curling wisps of smoke. They form a broad bow across the centre of the image. Many small, bright stars lie throughout the nebula, coloured blue, purple or red depending on depth. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray

The Universe is a dusty place, as this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week shows. Featured in this image are swirling clouds of gas and dust near the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. About 160 000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa, the Large Magellanic Cloud is one of the nearest galaxies to the Milky Way. The Tarantula Nebula is the most productive star-forming region in the nearby Universe, home to the most massive stars known.

The colourful gas clouds of this nebula are crossed by wispy tendrils and dark clumps of dust. This dust is different from ordinary household dust, which can be made of bits of soil, skin cells, hair and even plastic. Cosmic dust tends to be made of carbon or of molecules called silicates, which contain silicon and oxygen. The data used to create this image were collected as part of an observing programme that aims to characterise the properties of cosmic dust in the Large Magellanic Cloud and other nearby galaxies.

Dust plays several important roles in the Universe. Even though individual dust grains are incredibly tiny, far smaller than the width of a single human hair, dust grains in discs around young stars clump together to form larger grains and eventually planets. Dust also helps cool clouds of gas so that they can condense into new stars. Dust even plays a role in making new molecules in interstellar space, providing a venue for individual atoms to find each other and bond together in the vastness of space.

Source: ESA/Hubble/potw

---

A Tarantula’s outskirts

Large Magellanic Cloud, Tarantula Nebula

A section of a nebula, made up of layers of coloured clouds of gas, of varying thickness. In the background are bluish, translucent and wispy clouds; on top of these are stretches of redder and darker, clumpy dust, mostly along the bottom and right. In the bottom left corner are some dense bars of dust that block light and appear black. Small stars are scattered across the nebula. Credit: ESA/Hubble

Today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week features a dusty yet sparkling scene from one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Large Magellanic Cloud is a dwarf galaxy situated about 160 000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa.

Despite being only 10–20% as massive as the Milky Way galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud contains some of the most impressive star-forming regions in the nearby Universe. The scene pictured here is on the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula, the largest and most productive star-forming region in the local Universe. At its center, the Tarantula Nebula hosts the most massive stars known, which weigh in at roughly 200 times the mass of the Sun.

The section of the nebula shown here features serene blue gas, brownish-orange dust patches and a sprinkling of multicoloured stars. The stars within and behind the dust clouds appear redder than those that are not obscured by dust. Dust absorbs and scatters blue light more than red light, allowing more of the red light to reach our telescopes and making the stars appear redder than they are. This image incorporates ultraviolet and infrared light as well as visible light. Using Hubble observations of dusty nebulae in the Large Magellanic Cloud and other galaxies, researchers will study these distant dust grains, helping to understand the role that cosmic dust plays in the formation of new stars and planets.

 

Source: Esa/Hunnle/potw

---