Categories: galaxiesHubble

Can You Find a Hubble Hidden Treasure?

[/caption]

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 it exactly edge-on. Visible are filaments of dust and gas escaping the plane of the galaxy. A few foreground stars from the Milky Way shine brightly in the image, while distant elliptical galaxies can be seen in the lower right of the image.

This is just an example of the hidden gems in Hubble’s archives that have never been seen by the general public. There’s a new contest to find more — so how can you participate?

The HST has made over one million observations during its more than two decades in orbit. New images are published nearly every week, but hidden in Hubble’s huge data archives are some truly breathtaking images that have never been seen. They’re called Hubble’s Hidden Treasures, and between now and May 31, 2012, ESA invites you to help bring them to light. Just explore the Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA), and dig out a great dataset, adjust the contrast and colors using the simple online tools, and submit to the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Contest Flickr group. For more information about the competition, visit the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures webpage.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) also conducted a similar ‘treasure hunt’ with great results

This image was found by contestant Nick Rose.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

Recent Posts

Neutron Stars are Jetting Material Away at 40% the Speed of Light

It’s a well known fact that black holes absorb anything that falls into them. Often…

1 hour ago

Lunar Night Permanently Ends the Odysseus Mission

On February 15th, Intuitive Machines (IM) launched its first Nova-C class spacecraft from Kennedy Space…

11 hours ago

Webb Joins the Hunt for Protoplanets

We can't understand what we can't clearly see. That fact plagues scientists who study how…

13 hours ago

This Supernova Lit Up the Sky in 1181. Here’s What it Looks Like Now

Historical astronomical records from China and Japan recorded a supernova explosion in the year 1181.…

16 hours ago

Hubble Sees a Star About to Ignite

This is an image of the FS Tau multi-star system taken by the Hubble Space…

16 hours ago

This Black Hole is a Total Underachiever

Anyone can be an underachiever, even if you're an astronomical singularity weighing over four billion…

17 hours ago