Constellation Chart

The Goldfish, The Swordfish

The most conspicuous features of Dorado lie outside the bounds of the Milky Way Galaxy: it contains the majority of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a smaller 'companion' galaxy to our own.

Nebula's In Dorado

NGC 2070

NGC 2070, the Tarantula Nebula, is a gaseous section of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The nebula is so bright it goes by the name 30 Doradus. Dozens of supergiant stars are clustered at its centre, furnishing the nebula's light. With a diameter of about a thousand light years, if the Tarantula Nebula were moved to Orion - at the same distance as the Orion Nebula - then it would entirely fill the constellation of Orion. The Large Magellanic Cloud is a miniature galaxy about 200,000 light years away, a satellite of the Milky Way. It has perhaps a tenth of the mass of our own Milky Way Galaxy, with roughly 10,000 million stars (or ten billion if you wish).

The wonderful Tarantula Nebula / NGC 2070 in Dorado. The star cluster in the centre of the nebula is R136.

30 Doradus

Nebulas like 30 Doradus are the "signposts" of recent star birth. High-energy ultraviolet radiation from the young, hot, massive stars in R136 causes the surrounding gaseous material to glow. Previous Hubble telescope observations showed that R136 contains several dozen of the most massive stars known, each about 100 times the mass of the Sun and about 10 times as hot. These stellar behemoths all formed at the same time about 2 million years ago.

The stars in R136 are producing intense "stellar winds" (streams of material traveling at several million miles an hour), which are wreaking havoc on the gas and dust in the surrounding neighborhood. The winds are pushing the gas away from the cluster and compressing the inner regions of the surrounding gas and dust clouds [the pinkish material]. The intense pressure is triggering the collapse of parts of the clouds, producing a new generation of star formation around the central cluster. The new stellar nursery is about 30 to 50 light-years from R136. Most of the stars in the nursery are not visible because they are still encased in their cocoons of gas and dust.

Some of the nascent stars are forming in long columns of gas and dust. Previous Hubble observations revealed that the process of "triggered" star formation often involves massive pillars of material that point toward the central cluster. Such pillars form when particularly dense clouds of gas and dust shield columns of material behind them from the blistering radiation and strong winds released by massive stars, like the stars in R136. This protected material becomes the pillars where stars can form and grow. The Hubble telescope first spied these pillars of stellar creation when it captured close-up views of the Eagle Nebula.

The new image of 30 Doradus shows numerous pillars — each several light-years long — oriented toward the central cluster. These pillars, which resemble tiny fingers, are similar in size to those in the Eagle Nebula. Without Hubble's resolution, they would not be visible. One pillar is visible within the oval-shaped structure to the left of the cluster. Two [one dark and one bright] are next to each other below and to the right of the cluster. One pillar is at upper right, and still another is just above the cluster.

Newborn stars within most of these pillars already have been discovered in pictures taken by Hubble's infrared camera, the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer, which can penetrate the dust to detect embryonic stars. Eventually, intense radiation and stellar winds from the developing stars will blow off the tops of the pillars. The Hubble image shows that one such eruption already has occurred in 30 Doradus. A trio of young stars has just been "born" by breaking out of its natal pillar. These new stars are just a few hundred thousand years old.

In another 2 million years, the new generation of stars will be in full bloom. But the massive stars in R136 will have burned themselves out. And the nebula's central region will be a giant shell, devoid of gas and dust. Still later, all of the most massive stars and gas will have disappeared from the entire region. Only older, less massive stars will remain in a region cleared of gas and dust.

The mosaic image of 30 Doradus consists of five overlapping pictures taken between January 1994 and September 2000 by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Several color filters were used to enhance important details in the stars and the nebula. Blue corresponds to the hot stars. The greenish color denotes hot gas energized by the central cluster of stars. Pink depicts the glowing edges of the gas and dust clouds facing the cluster, which are being bombarded by winds and radiation. Reddish-brown represents the cooler surfaces of the clouds, which are not receiving direct radiation from the central cluster.

NGC2080

Halloween's origin is ancient and astronomical. Since the fifth century BC, Halloween has been celebrated as a cross-quarter day, a day halfway between an equinox (equal day / equal night) and a solstice (minimum day / maximum night in the northern hemisphere). With our modern calendar, however, the real cross-quarter day will occur next week. Another cross-quarter day is Groundhog's Day. Halloween's modern celebration retains historic roots in dressing to scare away the spirits of the dead. A perhaps-fitting modern tribute to this ancient holiday is the above-pictured Ghost Head Nebula taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. Appearing similar to the icon of a fictional ghost, NGC 2080 is actually a star forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The Ghost Head Nebula spans about 50 light-years and is shown in representative colors

NGC 1748

NGC 1748 cannot contain all the new stars it has formed. The young stars, the most massive of which are bright blue, emit so much energy they are pushing out and dispersing the gas and dust that comprise this star forming nebula. Within only the past hundred thousand years, these stars have altered the bubble-like shape of the nebula and will likely destroy the nebula over the next few million years. Of particular interest is a bright region surrounded by a pink ring of dust and gas visible on the left of the above recently released picture by the Hubble Space Telescope. The center of this region is being evacuated by the wind of the brightest star in the nebula. A lane of cooler dust connects NGC 1748 to a larger more diffuse nebula seen on the right. NGC 1748 spans about 25 light-years in diameter and can be found in our galactic neighbor: the Large Magellanic Cloud.

DEM L 106

A unique peanut-shaped cocoon of dust, called a reflection nebula, surrounds a cluster of young, hot stars in this view from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The "double bubble," called N30B, is inside a larger nebula, named DEM L 106. The larger nebula is embedded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way located 160,000 light-years away. The wispy filaments of DEM L 106 fill much of the image.

Globular Cluster In Dorado

NGC 1818

NGC 1818: A Young Globular Cluster

Globular clusters once ruled the Milky Way. Back in the old days, back when our Galaxy first formed, perhaps thousands of globular clusters roamed our Galaxy. Today, there are perhaps 200 left. Many globular clusters were destroyed over the eons by repeated fateful encounters with each other or the Galactic center. Surviving relics are older than any earth fossil, older than any other structures in our Galaxy, and limit the universe itself in raw age. There are few, if any, young globular clusters in our Milky Way Galaxy because conditions are not ripe for more to form. But things are different next door - in the neighboring LMC galaxy. Pictured above is a "young" globular cluster residing there: NGC 1818. Recent observations show it formed only about 40 million years ago - just yesterday compared to the 12 billion year ages of globular clusters in our own Milky Way

Planetary Destinations In Dorado

HD 30177

Parent Star: HD 30177 (G8 V) in the constellation of Dorado is located at a distance of 178.41 Light Years from our Solar system Co-ordinates of Right Ascension: 04 41 54.3731 & Declination: -58 01 14.725 . The apparent Magnitude of the star is 8.41. The Inner Edge of Habitability Zone is 0.59 AU & the Outer Edge of Habitability Zone: 1.85 AU and the estimated stellar lifespan of the star is 11663 million years. Orbiting around HD 30177 is planet HD 30177b the planet is believed to be a Ammonia Cloud Jovian, Eccentric planet and its exitence has been confirmed. The Planets Appearance is White ammonia, water, ice, clouds, and brown hydrocarbon stains at Mean Orbital Distance of 3.86 ± 0.9 AU and it is outside the habitability zone. The planet Orbits around the star every 2819.654 ± 800 Days and was discovered by Tinney et al on the 13 Jun 2002 .