The Hubble Space Telescope is still trucking around more than 30 years after its launch, observing the universe and sending back images of our homes for us to marvel at. This week, NASA and ESA highlighted images taken by Hubble of the highly productive Tarantula Nebula (officially named 30 Dorados) in the large Magellanic Cloud.
Although the large Magellanic Cloud is only 10-20% as large as our Milky Way galaxy, it boasts some of the most impressive star-forming regions in the nearby 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 about 200 times more stars than the Sun at its center, according to NASA. This Hubble view looks beyond the nebula’s outskirts, revealing layers of colorful gas and stars. The Tarantula Nebula is located in the nearby dwarf galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Although the final result we see is full of vibrant colors, Hubble’s images are initially back to grayscale. As NASA explained, “Scientists create composite color images by exposing the telescope using different color filters, assigning a color to each filter that corresponds to the wavelength of that filter, and combining the images. The new image of the Tarantula Nebula shows not only visible light, but also ultraviolet and infrared light. In such cases, colors are assigned to wavelengths that are not normally seen.
