NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured stunning images of a “cosmic tarantula”: the Tarantula Nebula.
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The nebula, officially called 30 Doradus, earned its spider nickname because “the region resembles a burrowing tarantula’s home, lined with its silk,” NASA said Tuesday.
The Tarantula Nebula sits 161,000 light-years away from Earth, in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy. Home to some of the biggest and hottest stars ever known, the Tarantula Nebula is the largest star-forming region within the galaxies closest to the Milky Way, according to NASA.
A nebula is a gigantic cloud of dust and gas in space. Some nebulae, like the Tarantula Nebula, are known as “star nurseries” because new stars form in the region. Other nebulae are created from explosions of a dying stars, NASA says.
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