In the Center of 30 Doradus
In the center of 30 Doradus lies a huge cluster of the largest, hottest, most massive stars known. The center of this cluster, known as R136 , is boxed in the upper right portion of the above picture. The gas and dust filling the rest of the picture is predominantly ionized hydrogen from the emission nebula 30 Doradus . R136 is composed of thousands of hot blue stars, some about 50 times more massive than our Sun . 30 Doradus and R136 lie in the LMC - a satellite galaxy to our own Milky Way Galaxy . Although the ages of stars in R136 cause it to be best described as an open cluster , R136's density will likely make it a low mass globular cluster in a few billion years.