JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011

PHOTO CAPTION                                    January 13, 1994

This image is of a star-forming region in the 30 Doradus nebula,
surrounding the dense star cluster R136.  The image was obtained
using the second-generation Wide Field and Planetary Camera
installed in the Hubble Space Telescope during the STS-61
mission.

The large picture shows a mosaic of the images taken with WFPC-
II's four separate cameras.  Three of the cameras, called the
wide-field cameras, give the telescope a panoramic view of
astronomical objects.  A fourth camera, called the planÿetary
camera, has a smaller field of view but provides better spatial
resolution.  The image shows the fields of view of the four
cameras combined into a chevron shape.

The image shows a portion of a giant cloud of gas and dust in 30
Doradus, whichÿ is located in a small neighboring galaxy called
the Large Magellanic Cloud about 160,000 light-years away from
Earth.  The cloud is called an H II region because it is made up
primarily of ionized hydrogen excited by ultraviolet light from
hot stars.ÿ  The inset shows a blowup of the star cluster, called
R136.  Even at the distance from Earth, WFPC-II's resolution
allows objects as small as 25 light-days across to be
distinguished from their surroundings, revealing the effect of
the hot stars on tÿhe surrounding gas in unprecedented detail. 
(For comparison, our solar system is about half a light-day
across, while the distance to the nearest star beyond the sun is
4.3 light-years.)

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed the Wide Field and
Planetary Camera-II for NASA's Office of Space Science.