Spring cleaning for a cosmic spiderweb 🧹 The Tarantula Nebula, located in a neighboring galaxy about 160,000 light-years from Earth, is full of bright clouds of gas and dark clumps of dust. This nebula is one of the most productive star-forming regions in the nearby universe—and even though its individual dust grains are incredibly tiny, far smaller than the width of a single human hair, gravity brings them together in disks around these stars to form larger clumps. Eventually, these clumps can form planets and solar systems, clearing out the space around them. This image of the Tarantula Nebula was captured by our orbiting NASAHubble telescope. Image description: A dazzling cosmic landscape is filled with white, red, and brown strands. Dark, fine clumps of dust draw a line from the top-center to center-right. Stars in shades of purple and blue fill the background. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray #NASA #Space #Universe #Nebula #Astrophotography