Hubble’s wide view of “Mystic Mountain” in the infrared: This is a NASA Hubble Space Telescope near-infrared image of a pillar of gas and dust, three light-years tall, that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby stars in the tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7500 light-years away in the southern constellation of Carina. The image marks the 20th anniversary of Hubble's launch and deployment into an orbit around Earth. The image reveals a myriad of stars behind the gaseous veil of the nebula’s wall of hydrogen, laced with dust. The foreground pillar becomes semi-transparent because infrared light from background stars penetrates through much of the dust. A few stars inside the pillar also become visible. The false colours are assigned to three different infrared wavelength ranges. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 observed the pillar in February/March 2010.

Name: Carina Nebula, HH 901, HH 902
Type: Milky Way : NebulaMilky Way : Nebula : Type : Jet
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Carina
Distance: 7500 light years
Release date: 23 April 2010, 10:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)

Astronomers nab runaway star: This image of the 30 Doradus Nebula, a rambunctious stellar nursery, and the enlarged inset photo show a heavyweight star that may have been kicked out of its home by a pair of heftier siblings. In the inset image at right, an arrow points to the stellar runaway and a dashed arrow to its presumed direction of motion. The image was taken by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The heavyweight star, called 30 Dor #016, is 90 times more massive than the Sun and is travelling at more than 400 000 kilometres an hour from its home. In the wider view of 30 Doradus, the homeless star, located on the outskirts of the nebula, is centred within a white box. The box shows Hubble’s field of view. The image was taken by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Wide Field Imager at the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope on La Silla, Chile. The young star, only one million to two million years old, may have travelled about 375 light-years from its suspected home in R136, the bright star cluster marked by a circle. Nestled in the core of 30 Doradus, R136 is one of the most massive young star clusters in nearby galaxies, containing several stars topping 100 solar masses each. 30 Doradus, also called the Tarantula Nebula, resides roughly 170 000 light-years from Earth, in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Instruments at three observatories, including Hubble’s WFPC2 and recently installed Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, have provided tantalising clues that the star was ejected from R136. In the ESO and WFPC2 images, hot stars are represented by the colour blue. Hydrogen is in red and oxygen in green. Radiation from the runaway star is making the nebula glow. The Hubble image was taken on 30 June 1995; the ESO image was released in December 2006.

Name: 30 Doradus, R136, Tarantula Nebula
Type: Local Universe : StarLocal Universe : Nebula
Category: NebulaeStars
Distance: 170000 light years
Release date: 11 May 2010, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Walsh (ST-ECF)Acknowledgment: Z. Levay (STScI) Credit for ESO image: ESOAcknowledgments: J. Alves (Calar Alto, Spain), B. Vandame, and Y. Beletski (ESO) Processing by B. Fosbury (ST-ECF)

Stellar runaway: This image is centred on stellar runaway 30 Dor #016. The image was taken by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The heavyweight star is 90 times more massive than the Sun and is travelling at more than 400 000 kilometres an hour from its home. The young star, only one million to two million years old, may have travelled about 375 light-years from its suspected home in star cluster R136.

Name: 30 Doradus, R136, Tarantula Nebula
Type: Local Universe : StarLocal Universe : Nebula
Category: Stars
Constellation: Dorado
Distance: 170000 light years
Release date: 11 May 2010, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Walsh (ST-ECF) and ESOAcknowledgment: Z. Levay (STScI)