Hubble’s stunning 325 megapixel mosaic of the Tarantula Nebula

This image is downsampled 3x. I strongly recommend looking at the full size gigapan here: www.gigapan.com/gigapans/228522. There, you can zoom and pan on the full size image, and see all those details for yourself.

 

Full write up here: theastroenthusiast.com/hubbles-stunning-325-megapixel-mos...

 

 

I don’t really think that words can effectively describe this image. There’s so much going on here that it almost seems wrong to try to simplify what’s happening, but here goes: At the top center lies a massive star cluster that’s putting out enormous amounts of energy. All the hydrogen gas around that star cluster is being ionized, much like a neon sign. The ionization and energy outflows create the beautiful knots and filaments that you can see. By looking at this region through a filter that isolates the Balmer alpha drop, we can see the nebula in all its glory.

 

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