Hubble

Can You Find a Hubble Hidden Treasure?

May 18, 2012

Just look at the kind of stunning images that are buried in the archives from the Hubble Space Telescope! Here, Hubble turned its powerful wide field Advanced Camera for Surveys towards this spiral galaxy and took this close-up of its northern half. The entire galaxy, called NGC 891, stretches across 100,000 light-years and we see [...]

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A Sword of Stars

May 14, 2012

Like the blade of a magical weapon from a fantasy tale, the northern edge of spiral galaxy NGC 891 is captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, glowing with the light of billions of stars and interwoven with dark clouds of dust and cold gas.

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How the Hubble Telescope Will Look at the Moon to See Venus Transit the Sun

May 4, 2012

Venus moving across the face of the Sun, from our vantage point here on Earth, is such a rare event, that astronomers and observatories around the world have been preparing for this year’s Venus Transit, on June 5-6. And one observatory that is literally “around the world,” – the Hubble Space Telescope — is even [...]

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Will This Be The Fate Of The Earth?

May 3, 2012

Astronomers have found four nearby white dwarf stars surrounded by disks of material that could be the remains of rocky planets much like Earth — and one star in particular appears to be in the act of swallowing up what’s left of an Earthlike planet’s core. The research, announced today by the Royal Astronomical Society, [...]

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The Best of Hubble: 22 Years of Amazing Images

April 24, 2012

Loading player… 22 years ago today, the Hubble Space Telescope launched into orbit. After overcoming initial problems, Hubble has gone on to become legendary, helping scientists to rewrite astronomy textbooks. To celebrate Hubble’s 22nd anniversary, here’s a slideshow from ESA’s Hubblecast that shows some of the best images from over two decades in orbit, set [...]

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Special New Panorama Celebrates Hubble’s 22nd Anniversary

April 17, 2012

Happy birthday to the Hubble Space Telescope! On April 24, 1990, HST was launched into low Earth orbit. Now, nearly 22 years later, Hubble is still producing incredible, stunning images of the farthest reaches of the Universe. For this year’s anniversary, the Hubble team took a special panoramic view of 30 Doradus, a raucous stellar [...]

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Hubble Reveals Curious Auroras on Uranus

April 13, 2012

Astronomers have finally succeeded in capturing the first Earth-based images of the curious and fleeting auroras of Uranus using the Hubble Space Telescope, careful planning… and no small amount of luck.

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A Galaxy’s Bulge Divulges Its Spin

April 12, 2012

Although somewhat blobby and deformed, this is in fact a spiral galaxy, located in the southern constellation Hydra. Imaged by Hubble as part of a survey of galactic bulges, NGC 4980 exhibits what’s called a “pseudobulge” — an inline central concentration of stars whose similar spiral motion extends right down into its core.

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Kepler Mission Extended to 2016

April 3, 2012

With NASA’s tight budget, there were concerns that some of the agency’s most successful astrophysics missions might not be able to continue. Anxieties were rampant about one mission in particular, the very fruitful exoplanet-hunting Kepler mission, as several years of observations are required in order for Kepler to confirm a repeated orbit as a planet [...]

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The Care And Feeding Of Teenage Galaxies… And By The Way, They Need Gas

March 14, 2012

Got a teenager? Then you know the story. Go to look for your favorite bag of chips and they’re gone. You eat one portion of meat and they need three. If you like those cookies, then you better have a darn good place to stash them. And, while you’re at it, their car needs gas. [...]

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Hubble Spots Mysterious Dark Matter ‘Core’

March 2, 2012

Astronomers are left scratching their heads over a new observation of a “clump” of dark matter apparently left behind after a massive merger between galaxy clusters. What is so puzzling about the discovery is that the dark matter collected into a “dark core” which held far fewer galaxies than expected. The implications of this discovery [...]

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More Details from Hubble Reveal Strange Exoplanet is a Steamy Waterworld

February 21, 2012

Would Kevin Costner’s character in the movie “Waterworld” be at home on this exoplanet? The planet GJ 1214b was discovered in 2009 and was one of the first planets where an atmosphere was detected. In 2010, scientists were able to measure the atmosphere, finding it likely was composed mainly of water. Now, with infrared spectra [...]

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Light Echoes: The Re-Run Of The Eta Carinae “Great Eruption”

February 17, 2012

In this modern age, we’re used to catching a favorite program at a later time. We use our DVR equipment and, not so long ago, a VCR to record now and watch later. Once upon a great time ago we relied upon a quaint customer called the “re-run” – the same program broadcast at a [...]

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Young Star Cluster In Disintegrated Galaxy Reveals First-Ever Intermediate Mass Black Hole

February 15, 2012

Score another first for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope! Along with observations taken with the Swift X-ray telescope, a team of astronomers have identified a young stellar cluster of stars pointing the way towards the first verified intermediate mass black hole. This grouping of stars provides significant indication that black holes of this type may have [...]

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Hubble Captures a Classic Barred Spiral Galaxy

February 3, 2012

Is this what we look like? Astronomers don’t know for sure exactly what the Milky Way looks like, but searching out other barred spiral galaxies like this one is helping scientists to learn more about our home. Galaxy NGC 1073 is located in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster).Most of the known spiral galaxies [...]

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Hubble Captures Giant Lensed Galaxy Arc

February 3, 2012

Less than a year ago, the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 captured an amazing image – a giant lensed galaxy arc. Gravitational lensing produces a natural “zoom” to observations and this is a look at one of the brightest distant galaxies so far known. Located some 10 billion light years away, the galaxy [...]

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New Research Suggests Fomalhaut b May Not Be a Planet After All

January 26, 2012

When the Hubble Space Telescope photographed the apparent exoplanet Fomalhaut b in 2008, it was regarded as the first visible light image obtained of a planet orbiting another star. The breakthrough was announced by a research team led by Paul Kalas of the University of California, Berkeley. The planet was estimated to be approximately the size [...]

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Why Does Sirius Twinkle?

January 16, 2012

At this time of year, after dark we in the northern hemisphere are able to see the mighty constellation of Orion rise high in the sky with a very bright companion in a nearby constellation: Sirius – The Dog Star. Sirius is the brightest star in the sky and can easily be found in the [...]

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Supernova Primo – Out To Far Frontiers

January 16, 2012

Its nickname is SN Primo and it’s the farthest Type Ia supernova to have its distance spectroscopically confirmed. When the progenitor star exploded some 9 billion years ago, Primo sent its brilliant beacon of light across time and space to be captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s all part and parcel of a three-year [...]

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Hubble Provides Evidence for ‘Double Degenerate Progenitor’ Supernova

January 12, 2012

What happened 400 years ago to create this stunningly beautiful supernova remnant – and were there two culprits or just one? This Hubble Space Telescope view of a Type Ia-created remnant has helped astronomers solve a longstanding mystery on the type of stars that cause some supernovae, known as a progenitor. “Up until this point [...]

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