R136

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title: "R136" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["super-star-clusters", "open-clusters", "tarantula-nebula", "henry-draper-catalogue-objects", "astronomical-objects-discovered-in-1920", "large-magellanic-cloud", "star-forming-regions", "durchmusterung-objects", "dorado"] description: "Super star cluster in the constellation Dorado, in the Large Magellanic Cloud" topic_path: "general/super-star-clusters" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R136" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Super star cluster in the constellation Dorado, in the Large Magellanic Cloud ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox open cluster"]

Field	Value
name	R136
image	[[File:Grand star-forming region R136 in NGC 2070 (captured by the Hubble Space Telescope).jpg
caption	In ultraviolet, visible, and red light by Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3
credit	NASA, ESA
epoch	J2000.0
constellation	Dorado
ra
dec
dist_ly	157 kly
dist_pc	48.5 kpc
appmag_v	9.50
age	million years
mass_msol	90,000
names	UCAC2 1803442, SAO 249329, HD 38268, TYC 9163-1014-1, CD-69 324, GC 7114
::

| name= R136 | image= [[File:Grand star-forming region R136 in NGC 2070 (captured by the Hubble Space Telescope).jpg|280px]] | caption = In ultraviolet, visible, and red light by Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 | credit= NASA, ESA | epoch = J2000.0 | constellation = Dorado | ra = | dec = | dist_ly = 157 kly | dist_pc = 48.5 kpc | appmag_v = 9.50 | age = million years | mass_msol = 90,000 | names = UCAC2 1803442, SAO 249329, HD 38268, TYC 9163-1014-1, CD-69 324, GC 7114 R136 (formerly known as RMC 136 from the Radcliffe Observatory Magellanic Clouds catalogue) is the central concentration of stars in the NGC 2070 star cluster, which lies at the centre of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. When originally named it was an unresolved stellar object (catalogued as HD 38268 and Wolf–Rayet star Brey 82) but is now known to include 72 class O and Wolf–Rayet stars within 5 parsecs (20 arc seconds) of the centre of the cluster. The extreme number and concentration of young massive stars in this part of the LMC qualifies it as a starburst region.{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1086/177507| title = Adaptive Optics Near-Infrared Imaging of R136 in 30 Doradus: The Stellar Population of a Nearby Starburst| journal = The Astrophysical Journal| volume = 466| pages = 254| year = 1996| last1 = Brandl | first1 = B.| last2 = Sams | first2 = B. J.| last3 = Bertoldi | first3 = F.| last4 = Eckart | first4 = A.| last5 = Genzel | first5 = R.| last6 = Drapatz | first6 = S.| last7 = Hofmann | first7 = R.| last8 = Loewe | first8 = M.| last9 = Quirrenbach | first9 = A. | bibcode = 1996ApJ...466..254B}}

Properties

R136 produces most of the energy that makes the Tarantula Nebula visible. The estimated mass of the cluster is 450,000 solar masses, suggesting it may become a globular cluster in the future. R136 has around 200 times the stellar density of a typical OB association such as Cygnus OB2.

R136 is thought to be less than 2 million years old. None of the member stars are significantly evolved, and none are thought to have exploded as supernova. Because of this, the cluster contains no red supergiants, blue hypergiants, or luminous blue variables. The brightest stars are WNh, O supergiants, and OIf/WN slash stars, all extremely massive fully convective stars. A small number of B-type main sequence stars have been detected in the outskirts of the cluster, but less massive and less luminous stars cannot be resolved from the dense cluster core at the large distance of the LMC.

R136a

R136a is the bright knot at the centre of R136. It consists of eight extremely massive stars, three of them Wolf–Rayet stars and the rest early O-class stars.

Components

The cluster contains many of the most massive and luminous stars known, including R136a1. Within the central 5 parsecs there are 32 of the hottest type O stars (O2.0–3.5), 40 other O stars, and 12 Wolf–Rayet stars, mostly of the extremely luminous WNh type. Within 150 parsecs there are a further and 19 Wolf–Rayet stars. R136 was first resolved into three components R136a, R136b, and R136c. R136a was resolved using speckle interferometry and eventually space-based observations into as many as 24 components, dominated by R136a1, R136a2, and R136a3, all three being extremely massive WNh stars several million times more luminous than the sun.

::data[format=table title="Basic data for the original RMC 136 a, b, and c stars"] | Name | Right ascension | Declination | V (F555W) | Spectral type | bibcode=2020MNRAS.499.1918B |title=The R136 star cluster dissected with Hubble Space Telescope/STIS. II. Physical properties of the most massive stars in R136 |last1=Bestenlehner |first1=Joachim M. |last2=Crowther |first2=Paul A. |last3=Caballero-Nieves |first3=Saida M. |last4=Schneider |first4=Fabian R. N. |last5=Simón-Díaz |first5=Sergio |last6=Brands |first6=Sarah A. |last7=De Koter |first7=Alex |last8=Gräfener |first8=Götz |last9=Herrero |first9=Artemio |last10=Langer |first10=Norbert |last11=Lennon |first11=Daniel J. |last12=Maíz Apellániz |first12=Jesus |last13=Puls |first13=Joachim |last14=Vink |first14=Jorick S. |journal=Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |year=2020 |volume=499 |issue=2 |page=1918 |doi=10.1093/mnras/staa2801 |doi-access=free |arxiv=2009.05136 }} (F555W) | Temperature (K) | Luminosity () | Mass () | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | R136a1 | | | 12.28 | WN5h | −8.18 | 46,000 | 7,244,000 | 291 | | R136a2 | | | 12.80 | WN5h | −7.80 | 47,000 | 5,129,000 | 195 | | R136a3 | | | 12.97 | WN5h | −7.52 | 50,000 | 5,012,000 | 184 | | R136a4 | | | 13.96 | O3 V((f*))(n) | −6.68 | 50,000 | 1,905,000 | 108 | | R136a5 | | | 13.71 | O2I(n)f* | −6.86 | 48,000 | 2,089,000 | 116 | | R136a6 | | | 13.35 | O2I(n)fp | −6.46 | 52,000 | 1,738,000 | 105 | | R136a7 | | | 13.97 | O3III(f) | −6.59 | 54,000 | 2,291,000 | 127 | | R136a8 | | | 14.42 | O2–3V | −6.05 | 49,500 | 1,479,000 | 96 | | R136b | | | 13.24 | O4If | −7.70 | 35,500 | 2,239,000 | 92 | | R136c | | | 12.86 | WN5h | −7.9 | 42,170 | 3,802,000 | 142 | ::

Gallery

R136 observed with WFC3.jpg|R136 observed with Hubble's WFC3 Runaway star speeding from 30 Doradus.jpg|Runaway star speeding from 30 Doradus in an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope Grand star-forming region R136 in NGC 2070 (infrared, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope).jpg|R136 in infrared (Hubble Space Telescope)

References

References

1. (January 2000). "The Tycho-2 catalogue of the 2.5 million brightest stars – Letter to the Editor". Astronomy and Astrophysics.
2. "RMC 136".
3. (1960). "The brightest stars in the Magellanic Clouds". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
4. (2013). "The VLT–FLAMES Tarantula Survey – XI. A census of the hot luminous stars and their feedback in 30 Doradus". Astronomy & Astrophysics.
5. Bosch, Guillermo. (2009). "Gemini/GMOS Search for Massive Binaries in the Ionizing Cluster of 30 Dor". Astronomical Journal.
6. (1998). "Star Formation in R136: A Cluster of O3 Stars Revealed by ''Hubble'' Space Telescope ''Spectroscopy''". The Astrophysical Journal.
7. (2016). "The R136 star cluster dissected with Hubble Space Telescope/STIS. I. Far-ultraviolet spectroscopic census and the origin of He II λ1640 in young star clusters". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
8. (2012). "Runaway massive stars from R136: Vfts 682 is very likely a "slow runaway"". [[The Astrophysical Journal]].
9. (November 1992). "Hubble Space Telescope Planetary Camera images of R136". The Astronomical Journal.
10. (7 April 2022). "The R136 star cluster dissected with Hubble Space Telescope/STIS. III. The most massive stars and their clumped winds". Astronomy & Astrophysics.
11. (2020). "The R136 star cluster dissected with Hubble Space Telescope/STIS. II. Physical properties of the most massive stars in R136". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
12. Keszthelyi, Z.. (2025-08-01). "Evolutionary models for the very massive stars in the R136 cluster of 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud". Astronomy & Astrophysics.
13. (2009). "Spitzer SAGE Infrared Photometry of Massive Stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud". The Astronomical Journal.
14. (17 March 2016). "R136 observed with WFC3".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::