Multiple-Intelligences Neural Interfacing Optimization Node
I'm a geek. No. Really. Really geeky. And I write poetry. And I read poetry. I'm an English teacher to-be.
(via APOD: 2012 October 24 - NGC 206 and the Star Clouds of Andromeda)
NGC 206 is the star cluster in the center of the image. See those bright blue stars all clumped together? Yeah, that’s an open cluster (or galactic cluster) like the Pleiades or the stars in the Eagle Nebula…except a whole lot bigger. There’s nothing in our own galaxy to compare it to. At 4,000 light-years across, NGC 206 is comparable to the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud or NGC 604 in M33, the Triangulum Galaxy.
Tarantula Nebula, John P. Gleason
Stellar nurseries are amaaaaaaaazing.
(via APOD: 2012 July 29 - Star Cluster R136 Bursts Out)
In our neighboring satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, star cluster R136 bursts forth from the Tarantula Nebula, knows as 30 Doradus.
A mere “Pinwheel Galaxy” (M101) away from us, the Large Magellanic Cloud is an irregular galaxy caught in the Milky Way’s gravitational pull. The Tarantula Nebula, itself, is bigger than our most famous giant nebula/molecular cloud complex, the Orion Molecular Cloud.
In the picture, the very hot, very massive, very young stars have carved out this space in the middle of the nebula, showing themselves to the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument on the final refurbish of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, & F. Paresce (INAF-IASF), R. O’Connell (U. Virginia), & the HST WFC3 Science Oversight Committee
(via APOD: 2012 May 16 - Star Formation in the Tarantula Nebula)
Holy! A wonderful mosaic composition of Hubble data is assembled here. Even at a small size, it is impressive, but blow it up…and prepare to have trouble containing the awesome.
This is the Tarantula Nebula, out in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way. It’s actually the most active star-forming region in the entire Local Group of galaxies (our home cluster). If it was as close as the Orion Nebula, it would cover half the sky!
There’s a whole ton of stuff going on here. The pinks and reds are gas from emission nebulae (excited hydrogen de-ionizing and releasing electromagnetic radiation), but there are remnants of supernovae in here (as you might expect, when you birth a lot of stars, some of them die off rather quickly) and dark nebulae (dust that’s in-between you and a light source, creating a dark patch, but which is, in combination with the gas, quite useful for starting more stellar formation).
Happy 22nd anniversary of Hubble’s launch, indeed!
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, ESO, D. Lennon (ESA/STScI) et al., and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
