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    Tarantula Nebula tagged posts

    Hubble Captures a Tarantula

    August 12, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A colorful nebula. The image’s top-left is filled 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 throughout the clouds.
    This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a portion of the Tarantula Nebula.
    ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray

    This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures incredible details in the dusty clouds of a star-forming factory called the Tarantula Nebula. Most of the nebulae Hubble images are in our galaxy, but this nebula is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy 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 mos...

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    Scientists discover new sources for ‘the molecule that made the universe’

    February 13, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    MSU scientists discover new sources for 'the molecule that made the universe'
    A star-forming region in the Tarantula Nebula as captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. MSU researchers have recently uncovered alternative sources of the molecule H₃⁺, which plays a crucial role in the birth of stars and other cosmic chemistry. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team

    From helping catalyze interstellar reactions and fueling the birth of stars to its presence in neighborhood gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter, trihydrogen, or H3+, is best known as the “the molecule that made the universe.”

    While we have a clear picture of how the majority of H3+ is formed—a hydrogen molecule, or H2, colliding with its ionized counterpart, H2+—scientists are keen to understand alternative sources of H3+ and to better measure its abundance throughout the cosmos...

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    On the Origin of Massive Stars

    March 22, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This scene of stellar creation, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, sits near the outskirts of the famous Tarantula Nebula. This cloud of gas and dust, as well as the many young and massive stars surrounding it, is the perfect laboratory to study the origin of massive stars.

    A scene of stellar creation, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, sits near the outskirts of the famous Tarantula Nebula. This cloud of gas and dust, as well as the many young and massive stars surrounding it, is the perfect laboratory to study the origin of massive stars.

    The bright pink cloud and the young stars surrounding it in this image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have the uninspiring name LHA 120-N 150...

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    Large Magellanic Cloud: A crowded neighborhood

    May 30, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Glowing brightly about 160,000 light-years away, the Tarantula Nebula is the most spectacular feature of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our Milky Way. This image from VLT Survey Telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile shows the region and its rich surroundings in great detail. It reveals a cosmic landscape of star clusters, glowing gas clouds and the scattered remains of supernova explosions. Credit: ESO

    Glowing brightly about 160,000 light-years away, the Tarantula Nebula is the most spectacular feature of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our Milky Way. This image from VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile shows the region and its rich surroundings in great detail. It reveals a cosmic landscape of star clusters, glowing gas clouds and the scattered remains of supernova explosions. Credit: ESO

    Glowing brightly about 160,000 light-years away, the Tarantula Nebula is the most spectacular feature of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our Milky Way. A new image reveals a cosmic landscape of star clusters, glowing gas clouds and the scattered remains of supernova explosions. This is the sharpest image ever of this entire field.

    Taking advanta...

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