A panoramic portrait of a vast sculpted skyscape of gas and dust where thousands of stars are being born has been snapped by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.This fertile star-forming region, called the 30 Doradus Nebula, has a sparkling stellar centerpiece: the most spectacular cluster of massive stars in our cosmic neighborhood of about 25 galaxies.
The mosaic picture shows that ultraviolet radiation and high-speed material unleashed by the stars in the cluster, called R136 (the large blue blob left of center), are weaving a tapestry of creation and destruction, triggering the collapse of looming gas and dust clouds and forming pillar-like structures that are incubators for nascent stars.
The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA), for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Image files and additional information are available at these URLs:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/21
http://hubble.stsci.edu/go/news
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html
Credits: NASA, N. Walborn and J. Maiz-Apellaniz (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD), R. Barba (La Plata Observatory, La Plata, Argentina)
[Contact: Nolan Walborn, Donna Weaver ]
27-Jul-2001
