Portal:Astronomy/Picture/Week 30 2010



The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. There is no known star-forming region in our galaxy as large or as prolific as 30 Doradus. The image, taken in ultraviolet, visible, and red light by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3, spans about 100 light-years. A member of this cluster, R136a1, is currently the most massive known star, with an estimated 265 solar masses. Its discovery was announced on July 2010.