Hubble Captures Stunning New Image of Tarantula Nebula

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning new image of deep inside the Tarantula Nebula. The picture reveals hundreds of thousands of stars and protostars embedded inside the nebula and gives scientists a better view of the star factory.

The near-infrared view reveals newly formed stars that are often embedded in clouds of dust. Only this near-infrared light can pass through these clouds to reveal the more than 800,000 stars and protostars beyond.

The Tarantula Nebula itself is also known as 30 Doradus. It's a raucous region of star birth that resides 170,000 light-years away from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. Because it contains the nearest observable super-cluster of stars, the Tarantula Nebula is a nearby laboratory for seeing a close-up look of a firestorm of star birth that was much more common in the early universe.

This latest image is actually a huge Hubble mosaic. It's assembled from 438 separate images and spans about 600 light-years. Hubble can resolve individual stars and many red protostars and aging red giants. This latest mosaic, therefore, gives researchers new insights into star birth and evolution.

"Because of the mosaic's exquisite detail and sheer breadth, we can follow how episodes of star birth migrate across the region in space and time," said Elena Sabbi, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, in a news release.

So what exactly is fueling this vigorous star birth? It may partially be sparked by gas stripped from a small nearby galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud. Currently, the researchers hope to investigate further. By studying this nebula, they plan to answer whether supermassive stars always form in clusters, or whether they can be born in isolation.

The observations were made as part of the Hubble Tarantula Treasury Program. Want to see more images from Hubble? Check them out here.