The Tarantula Nebula is a huge emission nebula located as much as 160,000 light-years from Earth. It is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is an irregular galaxy orbiting our galaxy.

 

At the same time, this nebula is one of the brightest and largest nebulae known, it can reach a size of over 1,500 light-years!

 

This nebula also contains many stars with masses exceeding 100 solar masses, concentrated mainly in the R136 star cluster.

 

The most massive of them, R136a1, is 196 times more massive than the Sun and has a surface temperature exceeding 45,000 degrees Celsius! This object is the most intense site of star formation in the entire Local Group.

Around the Tarantula Nebula we can find many other nebulae and star clusters, in the nebula itself a supernova SN 1987A exploded in 1987, which was visible to the naked eye.

 

In 2024, it was confirmed that what remained from this supernova was a neutron star.