NGC 2070 The Tarantula Nebula

If you look into the southern sky on a clear night in the country, away from city lights, you may see two smudges of light. These smudges are the large and the small Magellanic Clouds. They were discovered by Ferdinand Magellan during his voyage in 1519-22. These are small galaxies close to the Milky Way. The Tarantula Nebula, also called NGC 2070 or 30 Doradus, is an immense H-II region (ionized-hydrogen) in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It was originally thought to be a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way, but is now thought to be an independent nearby galaxy. The nebula consists of a cloud of interstellar gas - principally hydrogen - lit from within by young, hot stars that ionize the gas around them. As the atoms in the gas recombine, they emit visible light. It is one of the largest regions of ionized gas in the entire Local Group of galaxies.