Hubble Space Telescope snapshot of the Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus). Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray, E. Sabbi, Acknowledgment: Y.-H. Chu
An image of the Tarantula Nebula (also referred to as 30 Doradus) is the newest Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week. The Tarantula Nebula is a big star forming area of ionized hydrogen gas situated in the massive Magellanic Cloud roughly 161,000 light years from the earth. its turbulent clouds of dust and gas is observed circulating in between the brilliant, recently formed stars of the area.
Hubble is acquainted with the Tarantula Nebula. It’s probably the brightest star-forming area within our galaxies area, and home to the hottest, most massive stars known. This will make it the ideal natural lab to test theories of star formation and evolution, and recently a rich assortment of Hubble pictures of this area were made accessible to the general public. Not too long ago, the James Webb Space Telescope from NASA, ESA, and the CSA delved into this area, revealing a huge number of never seen young stars.
In this mosaic image stretching 340 light-years across, Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) displays the Tarantula Nebula star-forming region in a new light, including tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously shrouded in cosmic dust. The most active region appears to sparkle with massive young stars, appearing pale blue. Scattered among them are still-embedded stars, appearing red, yet to emerge from the dusty cocoon of the nebula. NIRCam is able to detect these dust-enshrouded stars thanks to its unprecedented resolution at near-infrared wavelengths. To the upper left of the cluster of young stars, and the top of the nebula’s cavity, an older star prominently displays NIRCam’s distinctive eight diffraction spikes, an artefact of the telescope’s structure. Following the top central spike of this star upward, it almost points to a distinctive bubble in the cloud. Young stars still surrounded by dusty material are blowing this bubble, beginning to carve out their own cavity. Astronomers used two of Webb’s spectrographs to take a closer look at this region and determine the chemical makeup of the star and its surrounding gas. This spectral information will tell astronomers about the age of the nebula and how many generations of star birth it has seen. Farther from the core region of hot young stars, cooler gas takes on a rust colour, telling astronomers that the nebula is rich with complex hydrocarbons. This dense gas is the material that will form future stars. As winds from the massive stars sweep away gas and dust, some of it will pile up and, with gravity’s help, form new stars. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team
This new image brings together data from 2 distinct observation proposals. The very first was created to investigate the characteristics of dust grains which are present in the gap between stars and which form the dark clouds which run through this image. The idea, known as Scylla, enhances another Hubble observation proposal known as Ulysses, and also demonstrates how interstellar debris interacts with starlight in a number of locations. This particular picture also consists of data from an observing system examining star formation in conditions much like the early Universe, along with cataloging the stars of the Tarantula Nebula with Webb for future studies.