The Tarantula Nebula shouldn't be forming stars. What's going on?
The Tarantula Nebula is a star formation region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Tarantula is about 160,000 light-years away and is highly luminous for a non-stellar object. It's the brightest and largest star formation ...
But it shouldn't be.
The Tarantula Nebula, also called 30 Doradus, is dominated by a massive cluster of stars in its center called R136. The stars are both young and massive, and when enough of them are concentrated in one area, it's called a starburst region. R136 qualifies for that distinction. The stars in R136 are so tightly packed that in the scale of distance between our sun and its nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, there are tens of thousands of stars.
Massive young stars consume their hydrogen fuel at a ferocious rate, and they output enormous amounts of energy. That energy shapes the Tarantula Nebula. It's created expanding bubbles in the gas, one of which is visible in the JWST image below, up and to the left of the central cluster, R136. R136 is responsible for a group of these bubbles.
The Tarantula Nebula, also called 30 Doradus, is dominated by a massive cluster of stars in its center called R136. The stars are both young and massive, and when enough of them are concentrated in one area, it's called a starburst region. R136 qualifies for that distinction. The stars in R136 are so tightly packed that in the scale of distance between our sun and its nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, there are tens of thousands of stars.
Massive young stars consume their hydrogen fuel at a ferocious rate, and they output enormous amounts of energy. That energy shapes the Tarantula Nebula. It's created expanding bubbles in the gas, one of which is visible in the JWST image below, up and to the left of the central cluster, R136. R136 is responsible for a group of these bubbles.
But there's abundant weirdness in the center of the Tarantula Nebula. All the stellar radiation from all those intensely energetic stars should be pressurizing the gas in the center. But it's not. And the center area's mass is lower than expected. In order for the area to be as stable as it is, it should be more massive. What's going on?
In a new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers explain what's happening. The paper is "SOFIA Observations of 30 Doradus. II. Magnetic Fields and Large-scale Gas Kinematics." The lead author is Le Ngoc Tram from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.
In a new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers explain what's happening. The paper is "SOFIA Observations of 30 Doradus. II. Magnetic Fields and Large-scale Gas Kinematics." The lead author is Le Ngoc Tram from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.
30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, is a region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Streamlines show the magnetic field morphology from SOFIA HAWC+ polarization maps. These are superimposed on a composite image captured by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy. Credit: Background: ESO, M.-R. Cioni/VISTA Magellanic Cloud survey. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit. Streamlines: NASA/SOFIA
These progressively zoomed-in images of RC136 are from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. The star cluster is 10 million times more luminous than the sun. The brightest star is named R136a1 and is 265 times more massive than our sun, putting it near the top of the list of most massive stars ever found. Image Credit: By ESO/P. Crowther/C.J. Evans – The young cluster RMC 136a, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11013676
The JWST captured this image of the Tarantula Nebula and its R136 starburst region with its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument. The most active region appears to sparkle with massive young stars, appearing pale blue. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team
This image from the research shows the complex structure of the region with multiple large expanding shells produced by the hot cluster wind from R136 (indicated by a red star), and a slow expanding shell from the supernova remnant 30DorB (lower right). The white box shows the region covered by SOFIA/HAWC+ that this work covers. Credit: Tram et al. 2023
These images from the work are RGB images that help show both the magnetic fields and the movement of gas in 30 Doradus. The white lines in the left panel show the morphology of the magnetic fields. The yellow lines show redshifted and blueshifted gas and their axis. The different colours of gas show their different velocities. The left panel shows the observations for CII, the ionized carbon forbidden line. The right panel is similar to the left but is based on carbon monoxide. Credit: Tram et al. 2023
This partial figure from the research shows PV diagrams that indicate four different expanding gas bubbles in 30 Doradus. Credit: Tram et al. 2023