Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Ohio State Univ./J. Rodriguez et al; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/P. Edmonds
Cooling the Spider
The Tarantula
Nebula (otherwise known as 30 Doradus) in the Large Magellanic Cloud is the most active
region of star formation close to the Milky Way, containing enough raw materials to power 25 million years of star formation, and has produced some of the most massive stars in the LMC. As such it provides a unique test case for understanding the still-mysterious process of stellar childbirth. Star formation involves the interplay between extremely cold and extremely hot matter, gravity, magnetic fields, solid dust, low-density gas, inflows, outflows, turbulent motions and large-scale rotation. Clues to how this all fits together can be derived from multiwavelength images of star forming regions using high-energy X-ray cameras with lower energy images in the optical and infrared. The image above features a deep high-resolution X-ray image of the Tarantula Nebula, obtained by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (in blue), along with with an optical image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (in green) and infrared data from NASA's JWST (in red). The combination of all three images shows in detail how energy is lost from the hottest, X-ray emitting gas to the coldest infrared emitting dust.
A careful analysis of these images indicates that up to half of the hot, X-ray emitting gas leaks through the walls of colder gas and dust and escapes into dark interstellar space. Mixing between the cold gas near the shell walls and the hot gas also helps remove excess energy. In addition the hot material may be transferring heat through direct physical contact between hot and cool material, like a pan on a stove.
Published: August 17, 2026
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Page Author: Dr. Michael F. Corcoran
Last modified Monday, 17-Aug-2026 15:24:14 EDT