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Star Cluster R136 Bursts Out (2009 Dec 21)
Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 4:56 am
by APOD Robot
Star Cluster R136 Bursts Out
Explanation: In the center of star-forming region
30 Doradus lies a
huge cluster of the largest, hottest, most massive stars known. These stars, known collectively as
star cluster R136, were captured above in
visible light by the newly installed
Wide Field Camera peering though the recently refurbished
Hubble Space Telescope. Gas and
dust clouds in
30 Doradus, also known as the
Tarantula Nebula, have been sculpted into elongated shapes by powerful
winds and
ultraviolet radiation from these hot cluster stars. The
30 Doradus Nebula lies
within a neighboring galaxy known as the
Large Magellanic Cloud and is located a mere 170,000
light-years away.
Re: Star Cluster R136 Bursts Out (2009 Dec 21)
Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 3:47 pm
by bparsons
What cosmic events can form masses of gas and dust the size of the Tarantula Nebula, which contains more than enough matter to create a “cluster of the largest, most massive stars known?”
Re: Star Cluster R136 Bursts Out (2009 Dec 21)
Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2009 4:33 pm
by bystander
bparsons wrote:What cosmic events can form masses of gas and dust the size of the Tarantula Nebula, which contains more than enough matter to create a “cluster of the largest, most massive stars known?”
My guess would be interaction among the LMC, SMC, and the Milky Way.
Re: Star Cluster R136 Bursts Out (2009 Dec 21)
Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:10 am
by GaryR
I recall that during the 1950s, when I was a teenager interested in all things astronomical, that astronomers once thought that 30 Doradus was a single massive star.
Gary R