The Star Forming Region 30 Doradus
A new spectacular image of the Tarantula Nebula has been released on the ‘Universe Today’ website.
The Tarantula, also known as 30 Doradus and NGC 2070, is an extremely active area of star formation within the Large Magellanic Sloud (LMC). It is at a distance of 180,000 light years from us and is 1,000 light years wide.
Image of NGC2070 by Joseph Brimacombe (http://www.darksky.net.au/)
The Tarantula was first observed by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1751, who said, "It resembles the nucleus of a small comet." At the centre of this region is a star cluster called R136a, which contains twelve bright, massive stars of type O3.
Within the central region, there are dust clouds and voids which have been carved out as the bright stars emit energetic radiation into the surrounding clouds.
A famous event in the history of the Tarantula Nebula was the supernova SN1987a which occurred 21 years ago, and is probably the most well-studied supernova.
30 Doradus is an area that is of interest to many groups of researchers (e.g. those involved in research on supernovae, binary stars, massive stars, star formation) and had already attracted the attention of members of the FT Research Team.
We are currently preparing an educational project based on imaging the area around 30 Doradus to create a multi-colour mosaic, while also providing scientific data on many individual objects within this exciting region.
See the Universe Today article here
