There are few objects whose observation calls for one to observe more with the mind than the eye than the Cloud’s compact clusters

Big things certainly come in small packages when it comes to the Cloud’s collection of compact clusters. Most often masquerading as slightly bloated-looking stars (although there are some that appear as nothing more than a small star), these small sparklers contain some astounding surprises. Take HNT 1 for instance; it appears as a very small and faint “star” lying in the superbubble N11, yet in 2000 Hubble Space Telescope resolved the tiny pinprick of light into an astounding 70 stars! And the bright mag 10.2 stellar spark of R127 over in the star cloud LH 96, which lies just south of the Tarantula Nebula, contains among its stars the brightest Luminous Blue Variable in the LMC! But most incredible of all is the compact cluster R136 which lies at the heart of the Tarantula Nebula. It appears as a mag 10 star yet it is home not only to some of the most massive stars known, but also the most massive star known, R136a1 which weighs in at around 215 solar masses.

Superbubble N11 contains 4 compact clusters among its glittering treasures. Credit: NASA; C. Aguilera, S. Points, and C. Smith (CTIO); and Z. Levay (STScI)

It defies imagination to look at these “stars” in N11 knowing they are packed with stars: Brey 9 contains at least 16 early-type stars, including a Wolf-Rayet star and an O9-type star. PGMW 3070 contains 18 stars. HNT 1 contains 70 stars. And Sk -66 41 contains 15 stars.

Brey 9’s stars resolved by Hubble Space telescope. Credit: NASA, Hubble