The Hubble Space Telescope is still in operation more than 30 years after its launch, observing the universe and sending images home for us to marvel at. This week, NASA and ESA have brought to light a Hubble-captured image of the highly productive Tarantula Nebula (officially named 30 Doradus) in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and it’s a sight to behold.
The Large Magellanic Cloud may be only 10-20% more massive than our Milky Way galaxy, but it has some of the most impressive star-forming regions in the neighboring Universe! 1/3 pic.twitter.com/juulDT44mD
– HUBBLE (@HUBBLE_space) January 23, 2025
The Tarantula Nebula is “the largest and most productive star-forming region in the local universe,” with stars about 200 times more massive than the sun at its center, according to NASA. This Hubble view gives us a glimpse of the nebula’s outskirts, revealing layers of gas and colorful stars. The Tarantula Nebula is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby dwarf galaxy.
While the end result we see is filled with brilliant colors, the Hubble images initially return to grayscale. As explained, “scientists can create a composite color image by taking exposures using different color filters on the telescope, assigning a color to each filter that matches the wavelength of that filter, and combining the images.” The new image of the Tarantula Nebula not only depicts visible light, but also ultraviolet and infrared. In such a case, colors are assigned to wavelengths that we cannot normally see.
