Chandra Release - April 17, 2012

Visual Description: Tarantula Nebula (30 Doradus)

This is a composite image of the Tarantula Nebula that showcases the star-forming region located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The nebula's deep red and blue, and pale green and gold hues create a high contrast visual. A bright cluster of young stars are surrounded by a thick cloud of gas and dust, with a nebulous and spidery texture.  At the center of 30 Doradus, thousands of massive stars are blowing off material and producing intense radiation along with powerful winds. The Chandra X-ray Observatory detects gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by these stellar winds and also by supernova explosions. These X-rays, colored blue in this composite image, come from shock fronts -- similar to sonic booms -- formed by this high-energy stellar activity.  The Hubble data in the composite image, colored in a golden green, reveals the light from these massive stars along with different stages of star birth including embryonic stars a few thousand years old still wrapped in cocoons of dark gas. Infrared emission from Spitzer, colored in red, shows cooler gas and dust that have giant bubbles carved into them. These bubbles are sculpted by the same searing radiation and strong winds that come from the massive stars at the center of 30 Doradus.