February 2, 2004
The universe has spent billions of years making things that shine. On your birthday, we celebrate one of its quieter masterpieces.
The Tarantula Nebula from Spitzer
Birthday · February 2, 2004
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APOD published February 2, 2004. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
In the heart of monstrous Tarantula Nebula lies one of the most unusual star clusters. Known as NGC 2070 or R136, it is home to a great number of hot young stars. The energetic light from these stars continually ionizes nebula gas, while their energetic particle wind blows bubbles and defines intricate filaments. The new Spitzer Space Telescope took the above representative-color infrared image of this great LMC cluster. The image details the cluster's tumultuous center in gas, dust and young stars. The 30 Doradus nebula is one of the largest star-formation regions known, and has been creating unusually strong episodes of star formation every few million years. In the heart of this heart is a central knot of stars that is so dense it was once thought to be a single star.