If you look in the Southern sky, in the Large Megallanic Cloud you’ll notice a milky patch.  Grab a telescope and you’ll see a celestial spider take shape.  That’s the Tarantula Nebula.  Originally thought to be a star, in 1751 Nicolas Louis de Lacaille identified it as a nebula.  It is very complex and interesting, and well worth a close look.

NASA/JPL-CalTech/UCLA WISE image of the Tarantula

The Tarantula is extremely luminous.  We don’t get the full effect with it being about 49 kpc away (that’s bout 160,000 light years), but if it were as close to us as, say, the Orion Nebula (the one on Orion’s belt, you know it), the Tarantula would cast shadows.  It is hugely luminous, with an apparent magnitude of 8.  We’re talking here about one of the most active regions in the Local Group.  With an estimated total mass of 450,000 solar, this puppy is massive.

NASA/ESA Hubble R136

At the Tarantula’s heart lies the R136 star cluster.  This is a “super star cluster” containing at least 39 O3 type stars, several Wolf-Rayet stars, and a core of 12 very massive, luminous stars.  One of the twelve, R136a1, is a blue supergiant, and with a mass of 265 solar it is one of the largest stars identified to date.  Big?  R136a1 has a luminosity 8,700,000 times that of the Sun.

NASA/ESA/ESO Hubble The Exile

The Tarantula also contains (for now) an “exile star”.  That’s a sad, sad story about a star that’s getting shot out into space at a high rate of speed.

NASA/ESA/JPL Hubble Hodge 301 lower right

Looking for more?  Hodge 301 is also located within the Tarantula.  Since its birth, Hodge 301 has had at least 40 stars within go supernova.  This is a violent, older region of the Tarantula.

NASA/ESA Hubble time lapse of SN1987A

And speaking of supernovae, the Tarantula gave us SN1987A, not to mention the most recent 2011 supernova.

This is an active, beautiful, and fully fascinating object.  There’s a lot going on here, and it’s well worth a closer look.  HubbleSite has many more images if you’re interested, otherwise, enjoy these few I’ve posted.  It’s a beauty.