The photo below taken with the Hubble Space Telescope shows the area around the Tarantula Nebula. The cloud of gas and dust visible in the center and the numerous young and massive stars surrounding it are an ideal laboratory for studying the processes of massive star formation.
LHA 120-N 150 is not a very creative name for the gas and dust cloud visible in the photo. It is located on the outer edges of the Tarantula Nebula, which in turn is the largest star nursery in the local universe. Tarantula is 160,000 light-years away from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the neighboring dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way.
The Large Magellanic Cloud has repeatedly interacted with both our galaxy and the Small Magellanic Cloud. It is such interactions that provoked periods of intense formation of new stars in our galactic neighbor. Some of them can still be seen in the Tarantula Nebula.
The nebula itself is over 1,000 light-years across. Its relative proximity, the favorable slope of the Large Magellanic Cloud, and the lack of dust between us and the nebula make it an ideal laboratory for studying the formation of stars, especially the massive ones.
Astronomers study LHA 120-N 150, trying to better understand the environment in which massive stars form. Theoretical models indicate that they should form in star clusters, and yet observations indicate that up to 10% of them arise in total solitude. The gigantic Tarantula Nebula with its numerous smaller fragments is perfectly suited to solve this puzzle, because inside it you can find massive stars formed both individually and in groups.
Thanks to the Hubble telescope, astronomers are trying to find out if the individual stars visible in the nebula were actually formed alone or were just moving away from their siblings. Nevertheless, the study of such stars is not easy, because young stars, before they form, strongly resemble only densities.
Inside the LHA 120-N 150 there are several dozen such objects. Some of them are probably young stellar objects, while others are only densities. Only detailed analysis and observations will allow us to discover their true nature. This will allow scientists to finally solve the mystery of the formation of massive stars.
Hubble examines how massive stars form in the Tarantula Nebula
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