Key Takeaways:
- The Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070), located in the Large Magellanic Cloud at a distance of 160,000 light-years, surpasses the Orion and Carina Nebulae in scale and stellar content.
- Spanning approximately 1,000 light-years, the nebula harbors nearly one million stars, including numerous stars exceeding 100 solar masses.
- The nebula possesses sufficient gas reserves to potentially form hundreds of thousands of additional stars.
- A Hubble Space Telescope image, focusing on a section southeast of the R136 cluster, reveals a region characterized by diverse stellar populations, gaseous clouds, and significant dust obscuration, resulting in the reddish appearance of many stars due to preferential scattering of blue light.
The Orion Nebula (M42) and Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) may reign supreme among star-forming regions in the Milky Way, but they pale in comparison to the Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070). The Tarantula resides in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our own located 160,000 light-years away. This nebula spans roughly 1,000 light-years and contains nearly a million stars, dozens of which weigh more than 100 Suns. And the Tarantula holds enough gas to forge hundreds of thousands of future stars. The Hubble Space Telescope captured this tiny section on the nebula’s outskirts, southeast of the central R136 cluster. Hubble took the image through filters sensitive to ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths. Colorful stars, billowing gas clouds, and thick dust dominate the region. Many of the stars appear reddish because dust absorbs and scatters blue light more effectively than red.
