Tarantula Nebula Images Reveal Catastrophic Explosion Induced by Massive Stars at Its Center During Early Age of Universe

New images from our neighbor galaxy Tarantula Nebula were captured by the European Space Agency (ESA). This region contains some of the largest stars discovered across space.

Through the observations with Chile's Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescopes, scientists gained more information about the present status of one of the largest and most active data-forming galaxies near the Milky Way.

Secrets of Tarantula Nebula

(Photo : ESA/NASA, ESO and Danny LaCrue)
The Tarantula is situated 170 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) in the southern sky and is visible to the naked eye as a large milky patch. Astronomers believe that this small irregular galaxy is currently going through a violent period in its life. It is orbiting around the Milky Way and has had several close encounters with it. It is believed that the interaction with the Milky Way has caused an episode of energetic star formation – part of which is visible as the Tarantula Nebula.

One of the images experts collected from the Tarantula Nebula is the perspective of its entirety. Features such as its wispy clouds that look like arms of the largest spider species could be observed swarming the center of the nebula outwards.

The images are part of ESA's larger project to learn more about how the massive stellar bodies play a role in constructing the galaxy and its appearance.

The Tarantula Nebula, dubbed 30 Doradus, exists just 160,000 lightyears away from our galaxy. Throughout years of astronomical studies, the region has been part of many investigations regarding the cosmic bodies and the origins of galaxies.

The nebula is also one of the most unique areas of space that offer a breath-taking appearance. From Earth, the galaxy is shaped comparatively to a tarantula spider, leading early scientists to name it after the creature.

At the center of the Tarantula Nebula hovers a group of gigantic stellar bodies. CNET reported that these stars contain 150 solar masses and above, which means they are indeed over a hundred times greater than the size of our huge sun.

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Violent Explosion During Early Age of the Universe

Because of the abundance of stellar bodies in the nebula, it became a favorite spot for astronomers when studying various star-related activities such as collapses of gas clouds through gravity and the formation of new stars.

ESA specialist and co-author of the study Guido De Marchi explained that the 30 Doradus stands out from the rest due to its close distance to our galaxy, and with this proximity, we were able to find substantial pieces of evidence that could tell how the galaxies behaved when the universe was still at its early stage.

The Tarantula Nebula is a hundred times larger than the nearest star-forming galaxy to our planet, the Orion Nebula. To scale, the size of the Tarantula Nebula could cast a shadow and other features on our planet at night when it is placed in the same location as the Orion, which is about 1,300 lightyears away from it us.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor and lead of the research Tony Wong said that the fragments in the mid part of the Tarantula Nebula captured by the ALMA are likely remnants of a larger cloud that previously existed but was disassembled due to the violence exhibited by the massive stars during their early age.

The study was published in The Astrophysical Journal, titled "The 30 Doradus Molecular Cloud at 0.4 Parsec Resolution with ALMA: Physical Properties and the Boundedness of CO Emitting Structures."