Hubbles View of the R136 Star Forming Region

Hubble's Festive View of a Grand Star-Forming Region

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 Hubbles 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.

R136 – click for 979×1000 image

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Exploding star in NGC 2397

Exploding star in NGC 2397 (3/31/08)

The latest image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals a sharp view of the spiral galaxy NGC 2397. This image also shows a rare Hubble view of the late stages of a supernova - SN 2006bc, discovered in March 2006.

NGC 2397, pictured in this image from Hubble, is a classic spiral galaxy with long prominent dust lanes along the edges of its arms, seen as dark patches and streaks silhouetted against the starlight. Hubble’s exquisite resolution allows the study of individual stars in nearby galaxies.

Located nearly 60 million light-years away from Earth, the galaxy NGC 2397 is typical of most spirals, with mostly older, yellow and red stars in its central portion, while star formation continues in the outer, bluer spiral arms. The brightest of these young, blue stars can be seen individually in this high resolution view from the Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).

NGC 2397 – click for 1280×1022 image

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