Todays pic is another great nebula piccy for your enjoyment and is another of those with some much larger versions.
Denizen of the Tarantula Nebula
The star cluster at lower right, catalogued as Hodge 301, is a denizen of the Tarantula Nebula. An evocative nebula in the southern sky, the sprawling cosmic Tarantula is an energetic star forming region some 168,000 light-years distant in our neighbouring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud. The stars within Hodge 301 formed together tens of millions of years ago and as the massive ones quickly exhaust their nuclear fuel they explode. In fact, the red giant stars of Hodge 301 are rapidly approaching this violent final phase of stellar evolution - known as a supernova. These supernova blasts send material and shock waves back into the nebular gas to create the Tarantula's glowing filaments also visible in this Hubble Space Telescope Heritage image. But these spectacular stellar death explosions signal star birth as well, as the blast waves condense gas and dust to ultimately form the next generation of stars inside the Tarantula Nebula.
Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA / STScI/ NASA)
A full text article and larger versions of this piccy can be found here, the images range from just 18K up to 3.35Meg; the images are linked to on this page so there are no probs for 56K users who want some of the mid range sizes.
Previous Pic Of The Day posts
30th Apr 03
26th Apr 03
24th Apr 03
22nd Apr 03
19th Apr 03
18th Apr 03
16th Apr 03
Denizen of the Tarantula Nebula
The star cluster at lower right, catalogued as Hodge 301, is a denizen of the Tarantula Nebula. An evocative nebula in the southern sky, the sprawling cosmic Tarantula is an energetic star forming region some 168,000 light-years distant in our neighbouring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud. The stars within Hodge 301 formed together tens of millions of years ago and as the massive ones quickly exhaust their nuclear fuel they explode. In fact, the red giant stars of Hodge 301 are rapidly approaching this violent final phase of stellar evolution - known as a supernova. These supernova blasts send material and shock waves back into the nebular gas to create the Tarantula's glowing filaments also visible in this Hubble Space Telescope Heritage image. But these spectacular stellar death explosions signal star birth as well, as the blast waves condense gas and dust to ultimately form the next generation of stars inside the Tarantula Nebula.
Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA / STScI/ NASA)
A full text article and larger versions of this piccy can be found here, the images range from just 18K up to 3.35Meg; the images are linked to on this page so there are no probs for 56K users who want some of the mid range sizes.
Previous Pic Of The Day posts
30th Apr 03
26th Apr 03
24th Apr 03
22nd Apr 03
19th Apr 03
18th Apr 03
16th Apr 03
