Hubble Pics: 30 Doradus Nebula

smk writes: "The Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a panoramic portrait of a vast, sculpted landscape of gas and dust where thousands of stars are being born. This fertile star-forming region, called the 30 Doradus Nebula, has a sparkling stellar centerpiece: the most spectacular cluster of massive stars in our cosmic neighborhood of about 25 galaxies. The ultraviolet radiation and high-speed material unleashed by the stars in the cluster, called R136, are weaving a tapestry of creation and destruction, triggering the collapse of looming gas and dust clouds and forming pillar-like structures that are incubators for nascent stars."

Atlantis?

[Nastard]

"...forming pillar-like structures..."

Uh oh, don't let Yahoo [slashdot.org] hear about this.

Tarantula Nebula

[mgarraha]

This nebula is also known as the Tarantula Nebula, NGC 2070 [seds.org]. It is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud; a supernova appeared nearby in 1987. Southern Hemisphere observers can see the nebula with binoculars.