Johannes V. Feitzinger

30 Doradus as the active centre of the Large Magellanic Cloud

Evidence is presented for the hypothesis that the supergiantHii-complex 30 Doradus (NGC 2070) is the mildly active galactic nucleus of the Large Magellanic Cloud. For this purpose the general properties of galactic nuclei and the characteristics of active nuclei are reviewed (Section 2). Examination of 30 Doradus shows that it plasy the same exceptional role among allHii-regions of the LMC as Sgr A among those of our Galaxy, and has all the properties of a galactic nucleus (luminosity, emission spectrum, IR source, semistellar central object R 136, symmetry centre of an starting point of spiral structure). Evidence for the activity is given by the peculiar filamentary structure (Figure 1), the young spiral filaments superposed on old, broad and smooth near-circular arms (Figure 2), the splitting of the [Oiii] 5007 profile in two components corresponding to an expansion velocity of 50 km s−1, and the strong non-thermal component (Section 3). The mass loss of 30 Dor is estimated at 0.05M⊙/a. It is speculated that the nucleus of a galaxy may be wandering due to explosive events.