Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

NASA’s Webb telescope captures the majestic Tarantula Nebula

Trevor Mogg
By

The most powerful space telescope ever built is continuing to send back dazzling images of the universe from its orbit a million miles from Earth.

The James Webb Space Telescope’s latest stunner shows the Tarantula Nebula, described by NASA as “a raucous region of star birth that resides 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small, satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.”

Related Videos
The Tarantula Nebula captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.
As per NASA: In this mosaic image stretching 340 light-years across, Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) displays the Tarantula Nebula star-forming region in a new light, including tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously shrouded in cosmic dust. The most active region appears to sparkle with massive young stars, appearing pale blue. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team

The Tarantula Nebula earned its name for the dusty filaments that appear in earlier images captured by other telescopes, and is a favorite of astronomers with a special interest in star formation, NASA said. This is because the nebula’s chemical composition and development are similar to the enormous star-forming regions observed at the universe’s so-called “cosmic noon,” a time when the cosmos was just a few billion years old and star formation was at its height.

Also known as 30 Doradus, the nebula’s cavity, which you can see at the center of the image, has been hollowed out by intense radiation from a cluster of huge young stars that appear in the image as blue dots of light.

“Only the densest surrounding areas of the nebula resist erosion by these stars’ powerful stellar winds, forming pillars that appear to point back toward the cluster,” NASA says.

There’s still much for astronomers to learn about how stars form, but Webb’s advanced infrared cameras are sending back new kinds of images that reveal events behind the thick clouds of stellar nurseries.

“Webb has already begun revealing a universe never seen before, and is only getting started on rewriting the stellar creation story,” NASA said.

The James Webb Space Telescope launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida toward the end of 2021 and is a joint mission involving NASA and its European and Canadian counterparts.

Since reaching its orbital position in deep space earlier in the summer, it’s been beaming back incredible imagery for astronomers to examine as they seek to learn more about the origins of the universe while also searching for planets like our own that could support life.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
How James Webb is peering into galaxies to see stars being born
Researchers are getting their first glimpses inside distant spiral galaxies to see how stars formed and how they change over time, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope’s ability to pierce the veil of dust and gas clouds.

Recently astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to look at the structures of dust and gas which create stars in nearby galaxies. Now, some of the researchers have shared more about the findings and what they mean for our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve.

The project, called Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby Galaxies, or PHANGS, used James Webb to observe several galaxies which are similar to our own Milky Way to see how stars are forming within them.

Read more
NASA to reveal Artemis II crew for historic lunar trip
The moon and Earth as seen from the Orion spacecraft in November 2022.

NASA will soon reveal the four lucky astronauts that will be sent on a flyby of the moon in the Artemis II mission.

The four crewmembers -- three from NASA and one from the Canadian Space Agency -- will be named on Monday, April 3, NASA chief Bill Nelson announced in a tweet on Thursday.

Read more
Hubble captures a cosmic sea monster with this image of a jellyfish galaxy
A jellyfish galaxy with trailing tentacles of stars hangs in inky blackness in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. As Jellyfish galaxies move through intergalactic space they are slowly stripped of gas, which trails behind the galaxy in tendrils illuminated by clumps of star formation. These blue tendrils are visible drifting below the core of this galaxy, and give it its jellyfish-like appearance. This particular jellyfish galaxy — known as JO201 — lies in the constellation Cetus, which is named after a sea monster from ancient Greek mythology. This sea-monster-themed constellation adds to the nautical theme of this image.

This week's image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a special and delightful cosmic object: a jellyfish galaxy. These galaxies are named for their larger main body with tendrils that float along after them, like the sea creatures.

This particular jellyfish galaxy is called JO201, and is located in the constellation of Cetus. Appropriately for the sea theme, Cetus is a constellation named after a Greek mythological sea monster that sometimes had the body of a whale or serpent along with the head of a boar. In the image, you can see the main body of the galaxy in the center, with the trailing tendrils spreading down toward the bottom of the frame.

Read more