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A mysterious substance on Mars might be an undiscovered mineral
Week in images: 04-08 August 2025
Week in images: 04-08 August 2025
Discover our week through the lens
Physicists Divided on What Quantum Mechanics Says about Reality
A survey of more than 1,000 physicists finds deep disagreements in what quantum theories mean in the real world
European weather satellite readied for launch on Ariane 6 rocket | Space photo of the day for Aug. 8, 2025
This Mushroom’s Incredibly Bitter Taste Is New to Science
The first analysis of mushroom bitterness reveals ultrapotent compounds
Hubble Captures a Tarantula
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2 min read
Hubble Captures a Tarantula This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a portion of the Tarantula Nebula. ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures incredible details in the dusty clouds of a star-forming factory called the Tarantula Nebula. Most of the nebulae Hubble images are in our galaxy, but this nebula is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy located about 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa.
The Large Magellanic Cloud is the largest of the dozens of small satellite galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. The Tarantula Nebula is the largest and brightest star-forming region, not just in the Large Magellanic Cloud, but in the entire group of nearby galaxies to which the Milky Way belongs.
The Tarantula Nebula is home to the most massive stars known, some roughly 200 times as massive as our Sun. This image is very close to a rare type of star called a Wolf–Rayet star. Wolf–Rayet stars are massive stars that have lost their outer shell of hydrogen and are extremely hot and luminous, powering dense and furious stellar winds.
This nebula is a frequent target for Hubble, whose multiwavelength capabilities are critical for capturing sculptural details in the nebula’s dusty clouds. The data used to create this image come from an observing program called Scylla, named for a multi-headed sea monster from Greek mythology. The Scylla program was designed to complement another Hubble observing program called ULLYSES (Ultraviolet Legacy Library of Young Stars as Essential Standards). ULLYSES targets massive young stars in the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, while Scylla investigates the structures of gas and dust that surround these stars.
Explore More:Hubble’s Image Shows Turbulent Star-making Region
30 Doradus: A Massive Star-Forming Region
Large Magellanic Cloud’s Star-Forming Region, 30 Doradus
Explore the Night Sky: Caldwell 103/Tarantula Nebula
Multiple Generations of Stars in the Tarantula Nebula
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Exploring the Birth of Stars
Seeing ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light helps Hubble uncover the mysteries of star formation.
The Death Throes of Stars
When stars die, they throw off their outer layers, creating the clouds that birth new stars.
Hubble’s Nebulae
These ethereal veils of gas and dust tell the story of star birth and death.
Hubble Captures a Tarantula
- Hubble Home
- Overview
- Impact & Benefits
- Science
- Observatory
- Team
- Multimedia
- News
- More
2 min read
Hubble Captures a Tarantula This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a portion of the Tarantula Nebula. ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. MurrayThis NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures incredible details in the dusty clouds of a star-forming factory called the Tarantula Nebula. Most of the nebulae Hubble images are in our galaxy, but this nebula is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy located about 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa.
The Large Magellanic Cloud is the largest of the dozens of small satellite galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. The Tarantula Nebula is the largest and brightest star-forming region, not just in the Large Magellanic Cloud, but in the entire group of nearby galaxies to which the Milky Way belongs.
The Tarantula Nebula is home to the most massive stars known, some roughly 200 times as massive as our Sun. This image is very close to a rare type of star called a Wolf–Rayet star. Wolf–Rayet stars are massive stars that have lost their outer shell of hydrogen and are extremely hot and luminous, powering dense and furious stellar winds.
This nebula is a frequent target for Hubble, whose multiwavelength capabilities are critical for capturing sculptural details in the nebula’s dusty clouds. The data used to create this image come from an observing program called Scylla, named for a multi-headed sea monster from Greek mythology. The Scylla program was designed to complement another Hubble observing program called ULLYSES (Ultraviolet Legacy Library of Young Stars as Essential Standards). ULLYSES targets massive young stars in the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, while Scylla investigates the structures of gas and dust that surround these stars.
Explore More:Hubble’s Image Shows Turbulent Star-making Region
30 Doradus: A Massive Star-Forming Region
Large Magellanic Cloud’s Star-Forming Region, 30 Doradus
Explore the Night Sky: Caldwell 103/Tarantula Nebula
Multiple Generations of Stars in the Tarantula Nebula
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Exploring the Birth of Stars
Seeing ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light helps Hubble uncover the mysteries of star formation.
The Death Throes of Stars
When stars die, they throw off their outer layers, creating the clouds that birth new stars.
Hubble’s Nebulae
These ethereal veils of gas and dust tell the story of star birth and death.
What Are Light Echoes, and Why Do They Matter?
Bizarre phenomena called light echoes create strange, shifting shapes seen in some telescopic images, and help astronomers chart the heavens above
Congressman Eric Sorensen on Defending Climate Science, Depoliticizing Weather and Bringing Scientific Rigor to Capitol Hill
Representative Eric Sorensen of Illinois shares how his meteorology roots drive his fight to protect climate science and push back against political interference.
What time is the August full moon?
This Week's Sky at a Glance, August 8 – 17
Set an alarm and take a peek east in early dawn to follow Venus and Jupiter through their spectacular conjunction this week.
The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, August 8 – 17 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.
Human minds, robotic hands
Last July, a team of robots explored a simulated martian landscape in Germany, guided by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. This was the final session of the Surface Avatar experiment, a joint initiative between ESA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to investigate how astronauts can remotely control robotic teams.
This latest session took place at the DLR site in Oberpfaffenhofen and introduced new levels of autonomy, decision-making and realism, bringing Europe one step closer to seamless human-robot collaboration in space exploration.
Lunar Photobioreactors Could Provide Food And Oxygen On The Moon
Astronauts exploring the Moon will need all the help they can get, and scientists have spent lots of time and plenty of money coming up with different systems to do so. Two of the critical needs of any long-term lunar mission are food and oxygen, both of which are expensive to ship to the Moon from Earth. So, a research team from the Technical University of Munich spent some of their time analyzing the effectiveness of using local lunar resources to build a photobioreactor (PBR), the results of which were recently published in a paper in Acta Astronautica.
Simulating Ice Worlds in the Lab
Many objects in the outer Solar System contain large amounts of water ice, leading to a thick icy shell surrounding an ocean of liquid water. This water behaves like lava on Earth, reshaping their surfaces through a process called cryovolcanism. To better understand this process, researchers have created a low-pressure chamber that simulates the near-vacuum conditions on the surfaces of worlds like Europa and Enceladus. They could watch water create features we see across the Solar System.
Modeling Planet Formation With Water Tornadoes
Sometimes the easiest way to understand the physics of a phenomenon is to make a physical model of it. But how do you make a model of a system as large as, say, a protoplanetary disc? One technique, suggested in a recent paper in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and the University of Griefswald, would be familiar to any grade schooler who took a science class - spin water around in a circle really fast.
Webb Revists Hubble's Classic Ultra Deep Field
This image from the James Webb Space Telescope revisits one of the most iconic regions of the sky, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The result is a detailed view of thousands of distant galaxies, some dating back to the earliest periods of cosmic history.