APOD: In the Heart of the Tarantula Nebula (2018 May 20)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
Post Reply
User avatar
APOD Robot
Otto Posterman
Posts: 5345
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2009 3:27 am
Contact:

APOD: In the Heart of the Tarantula Nebula (2018 May 20)

Post by APOD Robot » Sun May 20, 2018 4:08 am

Image In the Heart of the Tarantula Nebula

Explanation: In the heart of monstrous Tarantula Nebula lies huge bubbles of energetic gas, long filaments of dark dust, and unusually massive stars. In the center of this heart, is a knot of stars so dense that it was once thought to be a single star. This star cluster, labeled as R136 or NGC 2070, is visible just above the center of the featured image and home to a great number of hot young stars. The energetic light from these stars continually ionizes nebula gas, while their energetic particle wind blows bubbles and defines intricate filaments. The representative-color picture, a digital synthesis of images from the NASA/ESA orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and ESO's ground-based New Technology Telescope, shows great details of the LMC nebula's tumultuous center. The Tarantula Nebula, also known as the 30 Doradus nebula, is one of the largest star-formation regions known, and has been creating unusually strong episodes of star formation every few million years.

<< Previous APOD This Day in APOD Next APOD >>

Boomer12k
:---[===] *
Posts: 2691
Joined: Sun Apr 22, 2007 12:07 am

Re: APOD: In the Heart of the Tarantula Nebula (2018 May 20)

Post by Boomer12k » Sun May 20, 2018 4:33 am

Nice image...lots going on...

:---[===] *

User avatar
Ann
4725 Å
Posts: 13374
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 5:33 am

Re: APOD: In the Heart of the Tarantula Nebula (2018 May 20)

Post by Ann » Sun May 20, 2018 5:38 am

Today's APOD looks great in many ways. Fantastic many-colored swirls and storms of gas rage among torrents of reddish-yellow stars. The sheer power of this cosmic ferocity and fireworks is awe-inspiring!

The source of all this frenzy and fury is a small whitish-looking knot of stars at top center in today's APOD, where it is surrounded by a swarm of tiny pinkish-orange stars. The cluster is, of course, R136. The link to more information on this cluster provided by the caption takes us to a picture where the cluster looks white to golden-orange. In order to look so orange, there sure must be a lot of red giants in R136!

The magnificent cluster R136.
Photo: NASA, ESA, & F. Paresce, R. O'Connell, & the HST WFC3 S.O.C.
Or not! Take a look at the picture at left of R136. It's nice and blue, isn't it?

But wait - isn't that another false-colored picture? Maybe there are bright stars of all colors in R136? Maybe the blue appearance of the stars in the NASA/ESA/Paresce/O'Connell picture is just caused by filters and processing that make all the bright stars in R136 look blue? Is that it?

No,it sure isn't! This is what Wikipedia says about R136:
Wikipedia wrote:

R136 is thought to be less than 2 million years old.[8][9] None of the member stars is significantly evolved and none is thought to have exploded as supernova. The brightest stars are WNh, O supergiants, and OIf/WN slash stars, all extremely massive fully convective stars. There are no red supergiants, blue hypergiants, or luminous blue variables within the cluster.
Red supergiant in the outskirts of R136.
Photo: NASA, ESA, & F. Paresce, R. O'Connell, & the HST WFC3 S.O.C.













Actually, there is one red supergiant in (or just outside) the "outer halo" of R136. Here it is: :arrow:




R136 and red giant star.
Photo: P Crowther (University of Sheffield)/NASA/ESA/REUTERS




So where is the red giant in relation to R136, then? Well, in the picture at left the star and its position compared with R136 is very obvious, and it looks brighter than it usually does, too.

Ann
Color Commentator

User avatar
orin stepanek
Plutopian
Posts: 8200
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 3:41 pm
Location: Nebraska

Re: APOD: In the Heart of the Tarantula Nebula (2018 May 20)

Post by orin stepanek » Sun May 20, 2018 12:19 pm

Don't touch; hot; hot; hot!! :D So much going on in the Tarantula!
Orin

Smile today; tomorrow's another day!

randrewmiller@hotmail.com

Re: APOD: In the Heart of the Tarantula Nebula (2018 May 20)

Post by randrewmiller@hotmail.com » Mon May 21, 2018 5:12 pm

Imagine if you were the person chosen to explain to an intelligent life - from the Tarantula Nebula - why exactly we humans named their zone the Tarantula Nebula. You show them a tarantula. They've never seen anything like it before. "How beautiful!" they exclaim in unbounded wonder. "We are honored!"

Photos like this humble and inspire.

User avatar
Chris Peterson
Abominable Snowman
Posts: 18113
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 11:13 pm
Location: Guffey, Colorado, USA
Contact:

Re: APOD: In the Heart of the Tarantula Nebula (2018 May 20)

Post by Chris Peterson » Mon May 21, 2018 5:38 pm

randrewmiller@hotmail.com wrote: Mon May 21, 2018 5:12 pm Imagine if you were the person chosen to explain to an intelligent life - from the Tarantula Nebula - why exactly we humans named their zone the Tarantula Nebula. You show them a tarantula. They've never seen anything like it before. "How beautiful!" they exclaim in unbounded wonder. "We are honored!"
All the more if they're an arthropod life form!
Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
https://www.cloudbait.com

Post Reply