In commemoration of Hubble space telescope completing its 100,000th orbit around the Earth during its 18th year of exploration and discovery, scientists aimed Hubble to take a snapshot of a dazzling region of celestial birth and renewal.
According to NASA's reports on Monday, Hubble peered into a small portion of the Tarantula nebula near the star cluster NGC 2074. The region is a firestorm of raw stellar creation, perhaps triggered by a nearby supernova explosion. It lies about 170,000 light-years away and is one of the most active star-forming regions in our local group of galaxies.
The image reveals dramatic ridges and valleys of dust, serpent-head "pillars of creation," and gaseous filaments glowing fiercely under torrential ultraviolet radiation. The region is on the edge of a dark molecular cloud that is an incubator for the birth of new stars.
The region is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite of our Milky Way galaxy. It is a fascinating laboratory for observing star-formation regions and their evolution. Dwarf galaxies like the Large Magellanic Cloud are considered to be the primitive building blocks of larger galaxies.
Launched into space in 1990, Hubble has given the world amazing insight into the origins of our universe. And NASA is preparing the fifth and final Hubble servicing mission. In October 2008, shuttle astronauts will take new instruments, gyros, batteries, and other components to enable the telescope's continued success through the year 2013.
Source:Xinhua
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