Comments on: A stunning star factory for Hubble's 22nd!

By: Amazing picture from Hubble for its 22nd Birthday | Martin S Pribble

Amazing picture from Hubble for its 22nd Birthday | Martin S Pribble — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 05:11:45 +0000

[...] This was so stunning I just HAD to steal this from Badastronomer. [...]

By: Jon Hanford

Jon Hanford — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:54:31 +0000

Wow, there’s a lot going on in this part of the LMC besides 30 Dor, aka the Tarantula Nebula: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Doradus .

Besides several star clusters, emission, reflection and dark nebulae (including a few Bok globules), a supernova remnant, young stellar objects(YSOs), and a handful of background galaxies, this image also includes the star with the fastest known rotation rate, VFTS #102, and the “runaway” star 30 Dor #16 ejected from the massive cluster R 136 at the heart of the Tarantula Nebula! Luckily the folks that made this mosaic have provided a labelled version of this fantastic image to locate all these celestial goodies: http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/large/heic1206c.jpg

Really helps one appreciate the beauty of this small but crowded corner of the sky.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:11:58 +0000

that is an excellent description of the cavities, and it really demonstrates the extreme power in those protostar solar winds and radiation pressure. Amazing. The more I see of these details of the processes, the less I think there is a distinction between “life” and “nonlife”, biological life is nothing but an extension of these living universe phenomenon, and don’t human nurseries seem like a type of extension of these stellar nurseries, to me they do.

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:54:56 +0000

That’s cool.

I never noticed before that Hubble’s launch anniversary is also my son’s birthday.

By: Cale Johnson

Cale Johnson — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:33:46 +0000

This image and article “embiggen” my mind!

By: kat wagner

kat wagner — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 06:23:14 +0000

Mindblowing image, and I even found the orange circle thingie. BA, you do great narrative. Thanks for these photos.

By: Sam

Sam — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 04:23:01 +0000

Too many wallpaper worthy pics lately, they’re piling up!

By: Amapola

Amapola — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 02:47:00 +0000

Wow. That would make the most amazing jig-saw puzzle…

It’s incredibly beautiful. How very cool that there are humans clever enough to figure out how to observe it like this.

By: Jess Tauber

Jess Tauber — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 02:42:49 +0000

So how much shielding would a starship need for its human crew to safely fly through one of these things?

By: Cindy

Cindy — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:52:46 +0000

Phil,

I remember those dark days as well. Wasn’t 30 Doradus an Early Release target after the first servicing mission with WFPC2 or FOC?

Will have to remember to sing “Happy Birthday” to HST in my Astronomy class next week.