Hubble's festive view of a grand star-forming region

Esahubble_opo0932a_1024

esahubble_opo0932a December 15th, 2009

Credit: NASA, ESA, and F. Paresce (INAF-IASF, Bologna, Italy), R. O'Connell (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee

Just in time for the holidays: a Hubble Space Telescope picture postcard of hundreds of brilliant blue stars wreathed by warm, glowing clouds. The festive portrait is the most detailed view of the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood. The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. There is no known star-forming region in our galaxy as large or as prolific as 30 Doradus. Many of the diamond-like icy blue stars are among the most massive stars known. Several of them are over 100 times more massive than our Sun. These hefty stars are destined to pop off, like a string of firecrackers, as supernovas in a few million years. The image, taken in ultraviolet, visible, and red light by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, spans about 100 light-years. The nebula is close enough to Earth that Hubble can resolve individual stars, giving astronomers important information about the stars' birth and evolution. The brilliant stars are carving deep cavities in the surrounding material by unleashing a torrent of ultraviolet light, and hurricane-force stellar winds (streams of charged particles), which are etching away the enveloping hydrogen gas cloud in which the stars were born. The image reveals a fantasy landscape of pillars, ridges, and valleys, as well as a dark region in the center that roughly looks like the outline of a holiday tree. Besides sculpting the gaseous terrain, the brilliant stars can also help create a successive generation of offspring. When the winds hit dense walls of gas, they create shocks, which may be generating a new wave of star birth. The movement of the LMC around the Milky Way may have triggered the massive cluster's formation in several ways. The gravitational tug of the Milky Way and the companion Small Magellanic Cloud may have compressed gas in the LMC. Also, the pressure resulting from the LMC plowing through the Milky Way's halo may have compressed gas in the satellite. The cluster is a rare, nearby example of the many super star clusters that formed in the distant, early universe, when star birth and galaxy interactions were more frequent. Previous Hubble observations have shown astronomers that super star clusters in faraway galaxies are ubiquitous. The LMC is located 170,000 light-years away and is a member of the Local Group of Galaxies, which also includes the Milky Way. The Hubble observations were taken Oct. 20-27, 2009. The blue color is light from the hottest, most massive stars; the green from the glow of oxygen; and the red from fluorescing hydrogen.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0932a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
30 Doradus
Subject - Local Universe
Nebula
Esahubble_opo0932a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 5h 38m 49.2s
DEC = -69° 6’ 6.3”
Orientation
North is 12.0° CCW
Field of View
2.6 x 2.7 arcminutes
Constellation
Dorado

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (WFC3) Infrared (I) 814.0 nm
Red Hubble (WFC3) Optical (H-alpha) 656.0 nm
Green Hubble (WFC3) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Optical (B) 438.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Ultraviolet (U) 336.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Red
Green
Blue
Blue
Esahubble_opo0932a_1280
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ID
opo0932a
Subject Category
C.4  
Subject Name
30 Doradus
Credits
NASA, ESA, and F. Paresce (INAF-IASF, Bologna, Italy), R. O'Connell (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee
Release Date
2009-12-15T15:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0932a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3
Color Assignment
Red, Red, Green, Blue, Blue
Band
Infrared, Optical, Optical, Optical, Ultraviolet
Bandpass
I, H-alpha, V, B, U
Central Wavelength
814, 656, 555, 438, 336
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
84.7050405, -69.1017466
Reference Dimension
3939.0, 4024.0
Reference Pixel
1970.5, 2013.0
Scale
-1.10024e-05, 1.1002433e-05
Rotation
12.01
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
opo0932a
Metadata Date
2019-10-07T11:41:02.096324
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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