Hubble

A Star-Making Blob from the Cosmic Dawn

December 21, 2011

Looking back in time with some of our best telescopes, astronomers have found one of the most distant and oldest galaxies. The big surprise about this blob-shaped galaxy, named GN-108036, is how exceptionally bright it is, even though its light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach us. This means that back in its heyday [...]

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Hubble’s Snow Angel

December 15, 2011

If you need a little help getting into the holiday spirit, the Hubble Space Telescope is here to assist. This gorgeous new image shows a bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106, (S106 for short) which looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. The outstretched “wings” of the nebula are actually the contrasting imprint of heat [...]

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Supernova Candidate Stars May Signal “Impending Doom”

December 2, 2011

This past year has given both backyard and professional astronomers a rare treat – a very visible supernova event. Hosted in the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), these stellar death throes may have been clued to us by a rather ordinary binary star system. In a recent study done by researchers at Ohio State University, a galaxy [...]

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NGC 1846 – Hubble Reveals Peculiar Life And Death Of A Stellar Population

November 23, 2011

About 160,000 light years away in the direction of southern constellation Doradus, sits a globular cluster. It’s not a new target for the Hubble Space Telescope, but it has had a lot to say for itself over the last twelve years. It’s actually part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, but it’s no ordinary ball of [...]

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Grunsfeld May Lead NASA Science Division

November 21, 2011

The current buzz amongst those in the know say that astrophysicist/astronaut, John Grunsfeld, has been chosen to lead NASA’s science mission directorate. Self-confessed “Hubble Hugger” and telescope repair man may very well become NASA associate administrator in September, according to a news article in Nature. As current deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute [...]

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Do Galaxies Recycle Their Material?

November 17, 2011

It’s a great question that’s now been validated by the Hubble Space Telescope. Recent observations have shown how galaxies are able to recycle huge amounts of hydrogen gas and heavy elements within themselves. In a process which begins at initial star formation and lasts for billions of years, galaxies renew their own energy sources.

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Live Webcast from American Museum of Natural History Today: Beyond Planet Earth

November 15, 2011

The American Museum of Natural History in New York will soon be opening up a new exhibition called “Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration,” and they are live-streaming a special public program at 12 Noon EST (17:00 UT), that includes NASA astronauts Mike Massimino and John Grunsfeld, crew members on mission STS-125 to [...]

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Hubble Telescope Directly Observes Quasar Accretion Disc Surrounding Black Hole

November 5, 2011

Thanks to the magic of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, a team of international astronomers have made an incredible observation – a quasar accretion disc surrounding a black hole. By employing a technique known as gravitation lensing, the researchers have been able to get an accurate size measurement and spectral data. While you might not [...]

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Determining The Galaxy Collision Rate

October 30, 2011

Big galaxies… Little galaxies… But how often do they meet? Thanks to information from some of the latest Hubble surveys, astronomers have been able to more closely estimate galaxy collision rates than ever before. Apparently those that have happened within the last eight to nine billion years have occurred somewhere in-between previous estimates.

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Astronaut Scholarship Foundation Raising Funds, Awareness With Autograph Show

October 25, 2011

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla – It all started – with seven. The original seven Mercury astronauts that is. They wanted to give back to the nation that had allowed them to reach the heights that they had achieved, while at the same time inspiring the nation’s young to follow in their footsteps. What arose was the [...]

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Dawn Discovers Surprise 2nd Giant South Pole Impact Basin at Strikingly Dichotomous Vesta

October 18, 2011

Scientists leading NASA’s Dawn mission have discovered a 2nd giant impact basin at the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta, which has been unveiled as a surprisingly “dichotomous” and alien world. Furthermore, the cosmic collisions that produced these two basins shuddered through the interior and created vast Vestan troughs, a Dawn scientist told Universe [...]

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New Dark Matter Census – The Hubble Survey

October 14, 2011

Way off in the constellation of Virgo, galaxy cluster MACS J1206.2-0847 -or MACS 1206 for short – is making news as the forerunner of a brand new Hubble Space Telescope survey. What’s new for the aging telescope? Now astronomers are able to assemble a highly detailed dark matter map… one that involves more galaxy clusters [...]

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Book Review: The Space Shuttle: Celebrating Thirty Years of NASA’s First Space Plane

October 10, 2011

The space shuttle program is over. The orbiters are being decommissioned, stripped of the components that allowed them to travel in space. For those that followed the program, those that wished they did and those with only a passing interest in what the program accomplished a new book has been produced covering the entirety of [...]

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Welcome To The Heart Of The Milky Way…

October 10, 2011

When it comes to my job, I see a lot of astrophotography. I’ve contemplated innumerable nebulae, viewed myriad galaxies and dreamed over abounding star clusters. Each photo is a work of art in its own right – where the palette is a computer program and the canvas is a screen. These creations are stunning, showing [...]

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Buried Treasure: Astronomers Find Exoplanets Hidden in Old Hubble Data

October 7, 2011

Over the past 21 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has gathered boatloads of data, with the Hubble archive center filling about 18 DVDs for every week of the telescope’s life. Now, with improved data mining techniques, an intense re-analysis of HST images from 1998 has revealed some hidden treasures: previously undetected extrasolar planets. Scientists say [...]

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Looking Into The Eye Of A Monster – Active Galaxy Markarian 509

October 4, 2011

“The world is a vampire, sent to drain… Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames…” Ah, yes. It’s the biggest vampire of all – the supermassive black hole. In this instance, it’s not any average, garden-variety black hole, but one that’s 300 million times the mass of the Sun and growing. Bullet with butterfly [...]

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Holmberg II – Forever Blowing Bubbles

October 4, 2011

“I’m forever blowing bubbles… Pretty bubbles in the air…” Its name is Holmberg II, and it’s a dwarf galaxy that’s only 9.8 million light-years away. It’s part of the M81 Galaxy Group and one of the few that isn’t distracted by gravity from nearby peers. Holmberg II is an active little galaxy and one that’s [...]

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Ed Weiler – NASA Science Leader and Hubble Chief Scientist Retires

October 1, 2011

Ed Weiler, NASA’s Science leader in charge of the robotic missions that continually produce scientific breakthroughs that amaze all humanity and longtime Chief Scientist on the Hubble Space Telescope that has completely revolutionized our understanding of humanities place in the Universe, retired today (Sept. 30) from NASA after a distinguished career spanning almost 33 years. [...]

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Even Small Galaxies Can Have Big Black Holes

September 16, 2011

The Hubble Space Telescope has done it again. By utilizing a slitless grism, the Wide Field Camera 3 has uncovered evidence that supermassive black holes are right at home in some very small galaxies. Apparently these central black holes began their life when their host galaxies were first forming!

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Book Review: A Dictionary of the Space Age

September 12, 2011

Writing a dictionary is not the same as writing a novel. While it might seem difficult to mess up a dictionary, even one with terminology that is as complicated as that used within the space industry – getting it right can be challenging. For those that follow space flight having such a dictionary can be [...]

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