Space Travel News  
Drama In The Tarantula Nebula

The Tarantula Nebula.
by Staff Writers
Boston MA (SPX) Dec 12, 2008
Found in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, 30 Doradus is one of the largest massive star forming regions close to the Milky Way. Enormous stars in 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, are producing intense radiation and searing winds of multimillion-degree gas that carve out gigantic bubbles in the surrounding cooler gas and dust.

Other massive stars have raced through their evolution and exploded catastrophically as supernovae, expanding these bubbles into X-ray-brightened superbubbles.

They leave behind pulsars as beacons of their former lives and expanding supernova remnants that trigger the collapse of giant clouds of dust and gas to form new generations of stars.

At the center of 30 Doradus lies the star cluster R136 at the intersection of three of these superbubbles. However, with ages only between one and two million years old, the stars in R136 are too young to be source of the supernovae that brighten the superbubbles in X-rays.

Instead, R136 is most likely just the latest cluster to form in 30 Doradus. It may be as massive as it is because these superbubbles have combined to concentrate their gas in this region and thus triggered intense star formation there.

30 Doradus is about 160,000 light years from Earth in the southern constellation of Dorado. It spans 800 light years across and is incredibly bright in many wavelengths.

If it were at the distance of the Orion Nebula (1,300 light years), 30 Doradus would span the area of 60 full Moons and its optical light would be bright enough to cast shadows at night on the Earth.

This latest X-ray image of 30 Doradus represents almost 114,000 seconds, or 31 hours, of Chandra observing time - three times longer than previously recorded. In this image, red represents the lower range of X-rays that Chandra detects, the medium range is green, while the highest-energy X-rays are blue.

Related Links
Chandra
Stellar Chemistry, The Universe And All Within It



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Astronomers Find The Two Dimmest Stellar Bulbs
Pasadena CA (SPX) Dec 11, 2008
It's a tie! The new record-holder for dimmest known star-like object in the universe goes to twin "failed" stars, or brown dwarfs, each of which shines feebly with only one millionth the light of our sun.







  • Aerojet Bipropellant Engine Sets New Performance Record
  • Cult spacecraft Part One: The Little Spaceplane That Couldn't
  • China launches hybrid rocket
  • Students participate in rocketry challenge

  • Final Payload Integration Begins On Ariane 5's Sixth Flight Of 2008
  • ILS Proton Successfully Launches Ciel II Satellite
  • W2M Satellite To Be Launched On December 20
  • Proton-M Rocket With Canadian Commsat Launched From Baikonur

  • Endeavour to make another overnight stop
  • Endeavour spends night in Texas
  • Endeavour On Its Way Back To Kennedy
  • NASA names space shuttle mission crews

  • A Station Celebration
  • NASA Signs Modification To Contract With Russian Space Agency
  • New Russian Space Freighter Docks With World Orbital Station
  • Endeavour astronauts finish fourth and last spacewalk

  • Russia To Take Indian Astronaut On Space Mission In 2013
  • Teddy take-off: bears launched into space
  • India, Russia sign nuclear energy, space deals
  • Space Mission Commander Gives Clues On First Hong Kong Astronaut

  • HK, Macao Scientists Expected To Participate In China's Aerospace Project
  • China's Future Astronauts Will Be Scientists
  • China Launches Remote Sensing Satellite
  • Damaged Nigerian satellite can't be recovered: officials

  • Marshall Sponsors Four Student Teams In FIRST Robotics Competitions
  • Jump Like A Grasshopper
  • Rescue Robot Exercise Brings Together Robots, Developers, First Responders
  • Honda unveils leg assist machine for elderly

  • Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Completes Prime Mission
  • Important Role Of Groundwater Springs In Shaping Mars
  • European Mars500 Participants Announced
  • China To Launch Probe To Mars With Russian Help In 2009

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright Space.TV Corporation. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space.TV Corp on any Web page published or hosted by Space.TV Corp. Privacy Statement