Field Notes · Deep-Sky
Anatomy of the Tarantula
NGC 2070 in the Large Magellanic Cloud — captured live on the Unistellar eQuinox 2
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What you're seeing
The EngineThe R136 cluster
That brilliant core holds some of the most massive stars known anywhere in the universe. Their radiation lights up everything around them.
Glowing GasIonised hydrogen
Hydrogen set aglow by the cluster. It's lit so fiercely at the core that it reads blue-white here, with softer red further out.
The LegsSculpted filaments
Vast streamers of gas carved by the stars' fierce winds and radiation — the spidery arms that give the Tarantula its name.
A Stellar NurseryThe next generation
Knots of cooler gas and dust threaded between the filaments, still collapsing to form the next wave of new stars.
Reading starlight
A star's colour is its temperature. The same physics that makes a poker glow from red to white-hot sorts the stars across this field: blue suns are scorching, red ones are cool and old.
Our own Sun sits in the calm yellow-white middle, around 5,500°C.
A Hot Blue Sun10,000–30,000°C
Young, massive and burning ferociously bright — the kind of star that builds a nebula like this.
A Cool Amber Sun3,000–4,000°C
Older and gentler, glowing like a slow ember. Most stars in the sky are these.