NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array have combined to deliver a breathtaking image of the star-forming region 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula. Located about 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, this massive nursery is home to thousands of stars and has enough fuel to power star formation for at least 25 million years.
The image reveals an eye-catching display of arcs, pillars, and bubbles created by the powerful winds from young stars. A dense cluster at the center of 30 Dor contains the most massive stars ever discovered, each only about one to two million years old. These massive stars send strong cosmic winds that have carved out this stunning landscape.
The new image is part of a large Chandra program that involved 23 days of observing time, exceeding the previous 1.3 days of observation on 30 Dor. This dataset will provide valuable insights into diffuse X-ray emission in star-forming regions and allows astronomers to study changes in massive stars over time.
A paper describing these results has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series and is available on the arXiv preprint server.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2025-02-nasa-telescopes-stellar-bouquet-valentine.html