Growing, glowing spider

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/PSU/L.Townsley et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL/PSU/L.Townsley et al.

A glow­ing spi­der is grows inside this mas­sive star-forming region known as the Taran­tula Nebula.

Explore the spi­der out­lines in this image from NASA’s Chan­dra X-ray Obser­va­tory and the Spitzer Space Tele­scope. What sto­ries or pat­terns does your imag­i­na­tion see? Leave a note below.

The Taran­tula Neb­ula or 30 Doradus, is one of the largest star-making regions known to astronomers. It is huge and it is grow­ing. It takes light more than 1,100 years, trav­el­ing nine tril­lion kilo­me­ters per year, to cross the neb­ula. The gar­gan­tuan neb­ula is found in the Large Mag­el­lanic Cloud, a neigh­bor­ing dwarf galaxy, about 160,000 light-years from Earth. About 2,400 mas­sive lie in the heart of the Taran­tula Neb­ula. Scorch­ing radi­a­tion and pow­er­ful winds from these stars sculpt and shape the sur­round­ing neb­ula. The ultra­vi­o­let radi­a­tion from the stars also causes the hydro­gen gas within the neb­ula to glow bright red.

Look deep in the neb­ula for bub­bles in the neb­ula. Shock­waves, like rip­ples in a pond, move out from the mas­sive stars. Bub­bles also form as the mas­sive stars destroy them­selves as super­novae.

The Taran­tula Neb­ula has enough mate­r­ial to make 450,000 sun-like stars. Astronomers spec­u­late that one day the neb­ula will form a glob­u­lar clus­ter. The Taran­tula Neb­ula is sim­i­lar to the closer Orion Neb­ula. If the much brighter Taran­tula Neb­ula was as close to Earth as the Orion Neb­ula, it would cast shadows.