Cosmic cloudscape

The Universe is a dusty place, as this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week shows. Featured in this image are swirling clouds of gas and dust near the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. About 160 000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa, the Large Magellanic Cloud is one of the nearest galaxies to the Milky Way. The Tarantula Nebula is the most productive star-forming region in the nearby Universe, home to the most massive stars known.

The colourful gas clouds of this nebula are crossed by wispy tendrils and dark clumps of dust. This dust is different from ordinary household dust, which can be made of bits of soil, skin cells, hair and even plastic. Cosmic dust tends to be made of carbon or of molecules called silicates, which contain silicon and oxygen. The data used to create this image were collected as part of an observing programme that aims to characterise the properties of cosmic dust in the Large Magellanic Cloud and other nearby galaxies.

Dust plays several important roles in the Universe. Even though individual dust grains are incredibly tiny, far smaller than the width of a single human hair, dust grains in discs around young stars clump together to form larger grains and eventually planets. Dust also helps cool clouds of gas so that they can condense into new stars. Dust even plays a role in making new molecules in interstellar space, providing a venue for individual atoms to find each other and bond together in the vastness of space.

[Image Description: A portion of a nebula, made of variously-coloured layers of dust clouds. One upper layer is dark reddish dust which is dense and obscures light, in places so dense that it appears black. A middle layer is pale clouds that are thick like curling wisps of smoke. They form a broad bow across the centre of the image. Many small, bright stars lie throughout the nebula, coloured blue, purple or red depending on depth.]

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Credit:

ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray

About the Image

Id:potw2506a
Type:Observation
Release date:10 February 2025, 06:00
Size:3104 x 3412 px

About the Object

Name:Tarantula Nebula
Distance:160000 light years
Constellation:Dorado
Category:Nebulae

Image Formats

r.titleLarge JPEG
3.5 MB
r.titleScreensize JPEG
396.6 KB

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r.title1024x768
361.2 KB
r.title1280x1024
551.9 KB
r.title1600x1200
752.3 KB
r.title1920x1200
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r.title2048x1536
1.1 MB

Coordinates

Position (RA):5 38 34.65
Position (Dec):-69° 4' 1.39"
Field of view:2.05 x 2.25 arcminutes
Orientation:North is 82.0° right of vertical


Colours & filters

BandWavelengthTelescope
Ultraviolet
UV
275 nm Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3
Optical
U
336 nm Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3
Optical
g
475 nm Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3
Optical
I
814 nm Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3
Infrared
YJ
1.1 μm Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3
Infrared
H
1.6 μm Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3
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