Hubble's Panoramic View of a Turbulent Star-making Region

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Hubble's Panoramic View of a Star-Forming Region

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Close-up images of features in the Tarantula Nebula

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Labelled view of the Tarantula Nebula

Video

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Hubblecast 54: 22 years in images

Several million stars are vying for attention in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of a raucous stellar breeding ground in 30 Doradus, located in the heart of the Tarantula nebula.

30 Doradus is the brightest star-forming region in our galactic neighbourhood and home to the most massive stars ever seen. The nebula resides 170 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small, satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. No known star-forming region in our galaxy is as large or as prolific as 30 Doradus.

The image comprises one of the largest mosaics ever assembled from Hubble photos and consists of observations taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys, combined with observations from the European Southern Observatory’s MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope that trace the location of glowing hydrogen and oxygen.

The image is being released to celebrate Hubble’s 22nd anniversary.

The stars in this image add up to a total mass millions of times bigger than that of our Sun. The image is roughly 650 light-years across and contains some rambunctious stars, from one of the fastest rotating stars to the speediest and most massive runaway star.

The nebula is close enough to Earth that Hubble can resolve individual stars, giving astronomers important information about the stars’ birth and evolution. Many small galaxies have more spectacular starbursts, but the Large Magellanic Cloud’s 30 Doradus is one of the only star-forming regions that astronomers can study in detail. The star-birthing frenzy in 30 Doradus may be partly fueled by its close proximity to its companion galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud.

The image reveals the stages of star birth, from embryonic stars a few thousand years old still wrapped in dark cocoons of dust and gas to behemoths that die young in supernova explosions. 30 Doradus is a star-forming factory, churning out stars at a furious pace over millions of years. The Hubble image shows star clusters of various ages, from about 2 million to about 25 million years old.

The region’s sparkling centerpiece is a giant, young star cluster named NGC 2070, only 2 million to 3 million years old. Its stellar inhabitants number roughly 500 000. The cluster is a hotbed for young, massive stars. Its dense core, known as RMC 136, is packed with some of the heftiest stars found in the nearby Universe, weighing more than 100 times the mass of our Sun.

The massive stars are carving deep cavities in the surrounding material by unleashing a torrent of ultraviolet light, which is etching away the enveloping hydrogen gas cloud in which the stars were born. The image reveals a fantasy landscape of pillars, ridges, and valleys. Besides sculpting the gaseous terrain, the brilliant stars also may be triggering a successive generation of offspring.

When the radiation hits dense walls of gas, it creates shocks, which may be generating a new wave of star birth.

The colours come from the glowing hot gas that dominates regions of the image. Red signifies hydrogen gas and blue, oxygen.

The image was made from 30 separate fields, 15 from each camera. Hubble made the observations in October 2011. Both cameras were making observations at the same time.
Notes

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, D. Lennon and E. Sabbi (ESA/STScI), J. Anderson, S. E. de Mink, R. van der Marel, T. Sohn, and N. Walborn (STScI), N. Bastian (Excellence Cluster, Munich), L. Bedin (INAF, Padua), E. Bressert (ESO), P. Crowther (Sheffield), A. de Koter (Amsterdam), C. Evans (UKATC/STFC, Edinburgh), A. Herrero (IAC, Tenerife), N. Langer (AifA, Bonn), I. Platais (JHU) and H. Sana (Amsterdam)

Links
Images of Hubble
NASA release

Contacts

Oli Usher
Hubble/ESA
Garching, Germany
Tel: +49-89-3200-6855
Email: ousher@eso.org

Young Stars Take a Turn in the Spotlight

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The star cluster NGC 2100 in the Large Magellanic Cloud

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The star cluster NGC 2100 in the constellation of Dorado

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The star cluster NGC 2100 in context

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Zooming in on the star cluster NGC 2100 in the Large Magellanic Cloud

ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT) has captured a striking image of the open cluster NGC 2100. This brilliant star cluster is around 15 million years old, and located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The cluster is surrounded by glowing gas from the nearby Tarantula Nebula.

Observers often overlook NGC 2100 because of its close proximity to the impressive Tarantula Nebula (eso0650) and the super star cluster RMC 136 (eso1030). The glowing gas of the Tarantula Nebula even tries to steal the limelight in this image — the bright colours here are the nebula’s outskirts. This new picture was created from exposures through several different colour filters using the EMMI instrument [1] on the New Technology Telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. The stars are shown in their natural colours, while light from glowing ionised hydrogen (shown here in red) and oxygen (shown in blue) is overlaid.

The colours that appear in nebulae depend on the temperatures of the stars lighting them up. The hot young stars in the Tarantula Nebula, which lie in the super star cluster RMC 136, are above and to the right of this image, and are powerful enough to cause oxygen to glow [2] showing up as blue nebulosity in this picture. Below NGC 2100 the red glow indicates either that the outer reaches of the influence of the hot stars of RMC 136 has been reached, or that cooler, and older, stars, that are only able to excite hydrogen are the dominant influence in this region. The stars that make up NGC 2100 are older and less energetic, and hence have little or no nebulosity associated with them.

Star clusters are groups of stars that formed around the same time from a single cloud of gas and dust. The stars with the most mass tend to form in the centre of the cluster, while those with less mass dominate the outer regions. This, along with the greater number of stars concentrated in the centre, makes the middle of the cluster brighter than the outer regions.

NGC 2100 is an open cluster, which means its stars are relatively loosely bound by gravity. These clusters have a lifespan measured in tens or hundreds of millions of years, as they eventually disperse through gravitational interaction with other bodies. Globular clusters, which look similar to the untrained eye, contain many more older stars and are much more tightly bound, and so have far longer lifespans: many globular clusters have been measured to be almost as old as the Universe itself. So while NGC 2100 might be older than its neighbours in the Large Magellanic Cloud, it is still a youngster by the standards of star clusters.

Data for this image of the under-appreciated young cluster were selected from the depths of ESO’s data archives by Hidden Treasures entrant David Roma as part of the astrophotography competition held by ESO in 2010 [3].

Notes

[1] EMMI stands for ESO Multi Mode Instrument. It is both a camera for imaging and a spectrograph.

[2] Most of the glow from oxygen comes from oxygen atoms that have lost two electrons. This strong emission is very common in nebulae but was mysterious to early astronomical spectroscopists and was initially thought to be coming from a new element given the name Nebulium.

[3] ESO’s Hidden Treasures 2010 competition gave amateur astronomers the opportunity to search through ESO’s vast archives of astronomical data, hoping to find a well-hidden gem that needed polishing by the entrants. To find out more about Hidden Treasures, visit http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/hiddentreasures/.

More information

ESO, the European Southern Observatory, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive astronomical observatory. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning a 40-metre-class European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

Links
Photos of the NTT and La Silla Observatory
David Roma’s Hidden Treasures image

Contacts

Richard Hook
ESO, La Silla, Paranal, E-ELT and Survey Telescopes Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: rhook@eso.org

Ambitious Survey Spots Stellar Nurseries

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VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey view of the Tarantula Nebula

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Extracts from the VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey view of the Tarantula Nebula

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VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey view of the Tarantula Nebula (annotated version)

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Infrared/visible comparison of the VISTA Tarantula Nebula image

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Zooming in on the VISTA view of the Tarantula Nebula

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Panning across the VISTA view of the Tarantula Nebula

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Infrared/visible cross-fade of the VISTA Tarantula Nebula image

Astronomers scanning the skies as part of ESO’s VISTA Magellanic Cloud survey have now obtained a spectacular picture of the Tarantula Nebula in our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. This panoramic near-infrared view captures the nebula itself in great detail as well as the rich surrounding area of sky. The image was obtained at the start of a very ambitious survey of our neighbouring galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds, and their environment.

The leader of the survey team, Maria-Rosa Cioni (University of Hertfordshire, UK) explains: "This view is of one of the most important regions of star formation in the local Universe — the spectacular 30 Doradus star-forming region, also called the Tarantula Nebula. At its core is a large cluster of stars called RMC 136, in which some of the most massive stars known are located."

ESO’s VISTA telescope [1] is a new survey telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile (eso0949). VISTA is equipped with a huge camera that detects light in the near-infrared part of the spectrum, revealing a wealth of detail about astronomical objects that gives us insight into the inner workings of astronomical phenomena. Near-infrared light has a longer wavelength than visible light and so we cannot see it directly for ourselves, but it can pass through much of the dust that would normally obscure our view. This makes it particularly useful for studying objects such as young stars that are still enshrouded in the gas and dust clouds from which they formed. Another powerful aspect of VISTA is the large area of the sky that its camera can capture in each shot.

This image is the latest view from the VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey (VMC). The project will scan a vast area — 184 square degrees of the sky (corresponding to almost one thousand times the apparent area of the full Moon) including our neighbouring galaxies the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The end result will be a detailed study of the star formation history and three-dimensional geometry of the Magellanic system.

Chris Evans from the VMC team adds: “The VISTA images will allow us to extend our studies beyond the inner regions of the Tarantula into the multitude of smaller stellar nurseries nearby, which also harbour a rich population of young and massive stars. Armed with the new, exquisite infrared images, we will be able to probe the cocoons in which massive stars are still forming today, while also looking at their interaction with older stars in the wider region.”

The wide-field image shows a host of different objects. The bright area above the centre is the Tarantula Nebula itself, with the RMC 136 cluster of massive stars in its core. To the left is the NGC 2100 star cluster. To the right is the tiny remnant of the supernova SN1987A (eso1032). Below the centre are a series of star-forming regions including NGC 2080 — nicknamed the “Ghost Head Nebula” — and the NGC 2083 star cluster.

The VISTA Magellanic Cloud Survey is one of six huge near-infrared surveys of the southern sky that will take up most of the first five years of operations of VISTA.

Notes

[1] VISTA ― the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy ― is the newest telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in northern Chile. VISTA is a survey telescope working at near-infrared wavelengths and is the world’s largest survey telescope. Its large mirror, wide field of view and very sensitive detectors will reveal a completely new view of the southern sky.

The telescope is housed on the peak adjacent to the one hosting ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and shares the same exceptional observing conditions. VISTA has a main mirror that is 4.1 m across. In photographic terms it can be thought of as a 67-megapixel digital camera with a 13 000 mm f/3.25 mirror lens.

More information

ESO, the European Southern Observatory, is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive astronomical observatory. It is supported by 14 countries: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and VISTA, the world’s largest survey telescope. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning a 42-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

Links

More information about VISTA
The VMC survey

Contacts

Maria-Rosa Cioni
University of Hertfordshire
UK
Tel: +44 1707 28 5189
Email: M.Cioni@herts.ac.uk

Richard Hook
ESO La Silla/Paranal & E-ELT Public Information Officer
Garching, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Email: rhook@eso.org