At a distance of around 160,000 light years lies a true giant: at the heart of the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Tarantula Nebula is home to the hottest and most massive of all the stars known to us. However, this is only one of the reasons why this nebula, as the largest and brightest star-forming region in our 'neighbourhood', is of such interest to scientists. Another is its chemical composition. It resembles the gigantic star-forming regions that were observed during the Cosmic Noon – that is, when the cosmos was only a few billion years old and star formation was at its peak.
The star-forming regions in our Milky Way galaxy produce nowhere near as many stars as this gigantic gyre of the Universe, and they also have a different chemical composition. This makes the Tarantula Nebula the closest – and thus easiest to see in detail – model for the Universe during its 'most productive times'. For astronomers, this nebula is thus the perfect window into the past. To look through this window, the Chandra X-ray Observatory has teamed up with the James Webb Telescope. The result is this stunning new image of the Tarantula Nebula. Chandra's X-rays – shown in royal blue and purple – reveal extremely hot gas and supernova remnants, while Webb makes visible the baby stars that are forming. Although humankind has been observing stars for thousands of years, the process of star formation still holds many mysteries. Many of them lie hidden behind the thick clouds of the star-forming regions. The James Webb Space Telescope has already begun to unveil this fog, revealing the universe as we have never seen it before. It is time to rewrite the history of star formation.
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