1 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:08,500 The Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, is a small companion galaxy of our own Milky Way. 2 00:00:08,700 --> 00:00:13,300 It can be seen with the naked eye, as a faint grey blotch in the constellation of Dorado. 3 00:00:16,500 --> 00:00:20,500 It’s a favourite hunting ground for astronomers and it has been studied by many telescopes. 4 00:00:20,700 --> 00:00:24,000 Its most dramatic feature is the Tarantula Nebula, 5 00:00:24,200 --> 00:00:28,000 a bright region of glowing gas and energetic star formation. 6 00:00:28,300 --> 00:00:31,500 Hubble has produced a close-up view of this nebula, 7 00:00:31,700 --> 00:00:35,300 which reveals this dynamic region of our Universe in unprecedented detail. 8 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:58,500 Hubblecast Episode 44: Hubble spies on the Tarantula Nebula 9 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:07,000 Presented by Dr J, aka Dr Joe Liske 10 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:11,000 This part of the Tarantula Nebula is one of the most dynamic, 11 00:01:11,200 --> 00:01:16,000 showing the area around the supernova remnant NGC 2060. 12 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:23,000 These wispy tendrils of gas and dust are the only visible remnant of a star which has exploded. 13 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:30,000 After puffing out these smoky remains, 14 00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:36,300 the core of the star that formed NGC 2060 collapsed into a pulsar, which is a type of neutron star. 15 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:46,500 The Tarantula nebula glows brightly because the atoms in its hydrogen gas are excited by the bright, 16 00:01:46,700 --> 00:01:49,500 newborn stars that have recently formed here. 17 00:01:49,700 --> 00:01:55,500 These toddler-stars shine forth with intense ultraviolet radiation that ionises the gas, 18 00:01:55,700 --> 00:01:58,500 making it light up red and green. 19 00:01:59,500 --> 00:02:04,300 The light is so intense that although around 170 000 light-years distant, 20 00:02:04,500 --> 00:02:06,500 and outside the Milky Way, 21 00:02:06,700 --> 00:02:10,500 the Tarantula Nebula is nevertheless visible without a telescope 22 00:02:10,500 --> 00:02:12,700 on a dark night to Earth-bound observers. 23 00:02:14,700 --> 00:02:20,000 But the biggest and brightest stars in the Tarantula are actually just outside Hubble’s field of view. 24 00:02:24,700 --> 00:02:28,000 This wider, but less detailed view of the Tarantula Nebula was taken 25 00:02:28,200 --> 00:02:34,000 with the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope, at La Silla Observatory in Chile. 26 00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:37,500 It shows us the source of much of the Tarantula’s light: 27 00:02:37,700 --> 00:02:41,000 the super star cluster RMC 136. 28 00:02:47,500 --> 00:02:51,200 So it wasn’t in fact that long ago that astronomers were still debating whether 29 00:02:51,500 --> 00:02:57,500 this intense light came from a compact star cluster, or perhaps from an unknown kind of super-star. 30 00:02:58,500 --> 00:03:03,000 It’s only been in the past 20 years that we have been able to prove that it is in fact a star cluster — 31 00:03:03,200 --> 00:03:07,700 albeit one that hosts some of the most massive stars that have ever been observed. 32 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:14,500 The Tarantula Nebula also hosts the supernova 1987a. 33 00:03:14,700 --> 00:03:18,500 Now, of all the supernovae that we have observed since the invention of the telescope, 34 00:03:18,700 --> 00:03:21,000 this one is by far the closest to us. 35 00:03:30,500 --> 00:03:36,500 Pulling further back, the size of the Tarantula Nebula relative to its host galaxy becomes clear. 36 00:03:36,700 --> 00:03:40,500 It is the brightest known star forming region in the local Universe 37 00:03:40,700 --> 00:03:44,000 and one of the most attractive spots in the night sky. 38 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:03,000 Transcribed by ESA/Hubble