BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Tarantula Nebula (30 Doradus)

The biggest, brightest nebula in our galactic neighborhood is not for arachnophobes. It's a cosmic spider hundreds of light years across known as the Tarantula Nebula. Although the nebula is 170,000 light years away it's so luminous that it can be seen with the unaided eye.

Tarantula Nebula (30 Doradus)

Fantastic composite photo of the very photogenic Tarantula Nebula. It's made up from space and ground images. You can see the nebular glow of R136, the central cluster of young massive stars. But there are other star-forming regions all around the nebula which are characterized by star clusters, filaments and blown-out bubble-shaped clouds. Supernova 1987A happened in the region at the lower right, but I couldn't say exactly where. If the Tarantula were at the distance of the Orion Nebula, it would take up half the sky.

Image Credit & Copyright: Processing - Robert Gendler, Roberto Colombari
Data - Hubble Tarantula Treasury, European Southern Observatory

The Tarantula Nebula is a giant star-forming region. Where you see all that red or pink gas, you're looking at giant emission nebula. Hydrogen gas glows red when excited by ultraviolet radiation. The UV comes from hot young stars.

There are also dark nebulae where dust obscures the stars behind them and supernova remnants.
Furthermore there's a bright cluster of stars to the upper left called R136. It contains a number of the most massive and brightest stars known.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, ESO, D. Lennon (ESA/STScI) et al., and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Here are two Hubble images of the Tarantula Nebula. The one on the left was taken in visible light, but the one on the right was taken in the infrared. The infrared shows up detail which is obscured by dust in visible light.

This spider is the Tarantula Nebula over a thousand light years across, a pretty big cosmic arachnid. It's about 180 thousand light years away, but if it were at about the same distance from us as the Orion Nebula, it would seem to take up half the sky.

Image Credit & Copyright: Ignacio Diaz Bobillo

The Cosmic Web of the Tarantula Nebula imaged by Marcelo Salemme. The spindly arms of the Tarantula nebula surround NGC 2070, a star cluster that contains some of the brightest, most massive stars known, visible in blue on the right. Since massive stars live fast and die young, it is not so surprising that the cosmic Tarantula also lies near the site of the closest recent supernova.