Fact Sheet
Bright Spider
A gigantic star factory, the Tarantula Nebula, is one of the highlights of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This massive cloud of gas and dust has given birth to thousands of stars, and many more are forming today. The biggest, brightest, hottest stars pump out ultraviolet energy that causes the surrounding gas to glow like the inside of a fluorescent bulb. This image was taken with the Curtis Schmidt telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. [Credit: S. Points/C. Smith/R. Leiton/C. Aguilera/NOAO/AURA/NSF]
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