A snapshot of the Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus) is featured in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The Tarantula Nebula is a large star-forming region of ionized hydrogen gas that lies 161,000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and its turbulent clouds of gas and dust appear to swirl between the region’s bright, newly formed stars.
The Tarantula Nebula is a familiar site for Hubble. It is the brightest star-forming region in our galactic neighborhood and home to the hottest, most massive stars known. This makes it a perfect natural laboratory in which to test out theories of star formation and evolution, and Hubble has a rich variety of images of this region.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray, E. Sabbi; Acknowledgment: Y. -H. Chu
For more information: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2023/hubbles-new-view-...
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A unique peanut-shaped cocoon of dust, called a reflection nebula, surrounds a cluster of young, hot stars in this view from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The "double bubble," called N30B, is inside a larger nebula. The larger nebula, called DEM L 106, is embedded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way lying 160,000 light-years away. The wispy filaments of DEM L 106 fill much of the image. Hubble captures the glow of fluorescing hydrogen and sulfur, as well as the brilliant blue-white colors of the hot stars.
The very bright star at the top of the picture, called Henize S22, illuminates the dusty cocoon like a flashlight shining on smoke particles. This searing supergiant star is only 25 light-years from the N30B nebula. Viewed from N30B, the brilliant star would appear 250 times as bright as the planet Venus does in Earth's sky.
Astronomers have made a clever use of the reflection nebula around N30B. By obtaining spectroscopic observations at various points across the nebula, they can study the spectrum of S22 from different angles. Remarkably, they have found that the star's spectrum changes with the viewing angle, suggesting that the star is surrounded by a flattened disk of gas expelled from its equator.
Astronomers R. Davies, K. Elliot, and J. Meaburn, who created the "DEM" catalogs of both the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, originally cataloged DEM L 106 in the 1970s. N30B was discovered in the 1950s by astronomer K. Henize, who later became a NASA astronaut.
DEM L 106 was imaged with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). Hubble data taken in 1998 were combined with data taken by the Hubble Heritage Team in late 2001.
For more information please visit: hubblesite.org/image/1272/news_release/2002-29
Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: M.S. Oey (Lowell Observatory) and Y.-H. Chu (Univ. of Illinois)
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Tags: Hubble Space Telescope Nebula Hubble Space Telescope double bubble N30B reflection nebula Large Magellanic Cloud Astronomical Hubble Telescope DEM L 106 LMC Henize S22 WFPC2 astronomy space NASA
This planetary nebula is known as Kohoutek 4-55 (or K 4-55) and is one of a series of planetary nebulae that were named after their discoverer, Czech astronomer Lubos Kohoutek. A planetary nebula contains the outer layers of a red giant star that were expelled into interstellar space when the star was in the late stages of its life. Ultraviolet radiation emitted from the remaining hot core of the star ionizes the ejected gas shells, causing them to glow.
In the specific case of K 4-55, a bright inner ring is surrounded by a bipolar structure. The entire system is then surrounded by a faint red halo, seen in the emission by nitrogen gas. This multi-shell structure is fairly uncommon in planetary nebulae.
This Hubble image was taken using the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on May 4, 2009. The colors represent the makeup of the various emission clouds in the nebula: red represents nitrogen, green represents hydrogen, and blue represents oxygen. K 4-55 is nearly 4,600 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus.
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/2562/news_release/2009-21
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: R. Sahai and J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
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Tags: Hubble Space Telescope Nebula Hubble Space Telescope planetary nebula K 4-55 Cygnus Astronomical Hubble Telescope Lubos Kohoutek Kohoutek 4-55 ultraviolet radiation ejected gas shells bipolar structure astronomy space NASA
This is one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's cameras. It is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth — and death — is taking place. Hubble's view of the nebula shows star birth in a new level of detail. The fantasy-like landscape of the nebula is sculpted by the action of outflowing winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars that inhabit this inferno. In the process, these stars are shredding the surrounding material that is the last vestige of the giant cloud from which the stars were born.
The immense nebula contains at least a dozen brilliant stars that are roughly estimated to be at least 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun. The most unique and opulent inhabitant is the star Eta Carinae, at far left. Eta Carinae is in the final stages of its brief and eruptive lifespan, as evidenced by two billowing lobes of gas and dust that presage its upcoming explosion as a titanic supernova.
The fireworks in the Carina region started three million years ago when the nebula's first generation of newborn stars condensed and ignited in the middle of a huge cloud of cold molecular hydrogen. Radiation from these stars carved out an expanding bubble of hot gas. The island-like clumps of dark clouds scattered across the nebula are nodules of dust and gas that are resisting being eaten away by photoionization.
The hurricane blast of stellar winds and blistering ultraviolet radiation within the cavity is now compressing the surrounding walls of cold hydrogen. This is triggering a second stage of new star formation.
Our Sun and our solar system may have been born inside such a cosmic crucible 4.6 billion years ago. In looking at the Carina Nebula we are seeing the genesis of star making as it commonly occurs along the dense spiral arms of a galaxy.
The immense nebula is an estimated 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina the Keel (of the old southern constellation Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts, from Greek mythology).
This image is a mosaic of the Carina Nebula assembled from 48 frames taken with Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The Hubble images were taken in the light of neutral hydrogen. Color information was added with data taken at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Red corresponds to sulfur, green to hydrogen, and blue to oxygen emission.
For more information please visit:
hubblesite.org/image/2099/news_release/2007-16
Credit: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); Credit for CTIO Image: N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley) and NOAO/AURA/NSF
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Tags: Hubble Space Telescope Nebula Hubble Space Telescope Astronomical Hubble Telescope Carina Nebula Carina the Keel photoionization stellar winds emission nebula Eta Carinae star formation region cold molecular hydrogen astronomy space NASA supermassive star