doi.eso.org

• Castro, Norberto [Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, Germany]
• Roth, Martin M. [Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, Germany]
• Weilbacher, Peter M. [Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, Germany]
• Micheva, Genoveva [Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, Germany]
• Monreal-Ibero, Ana [Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain]
• Kelz, Andreas [Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, Germany]
• Kamann, Sebastian [Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, UK]
• Maseda, Michael V. [Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, the Netherlands]
• Wendt, Martin [Institut für Physik und Astronomie, Universität Potsdam, Germany]
• The MUSE collaboration

The evolution of the most massive stars is a puzzle with many missing pieces. Statistical analyses are key to providing anchors to calibrate theory, but performing these studies is an arduous job. The state-of-the-art integral field spectrograph Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) has stirred up stellar astrophysicists, who are excited about its ability to take spectra of up to a thousand stars in a single exposure. The excitement was even greater with the commissioning of the MUSE narrow-field mode (MUSE-NFM) that has demonstrated angular resolution akin to that of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We present the first mapping of the dense stellar core R136 in the Tarantula nebula based on a MUSE-NFM mosaic. We aim to deliver the first homogeneous analysis of the most massive stars in the local Universe and to explore the impact of these peculiar objects on the interstellar medium (ISM).