Category: Hubble

Image credit: Hubble

Even though the Hubble Space Telescope is out of commission while it’s upgraded, older images are still being released to the public. This image, actually taken back in 1995, reveals how a bow shock has formed around a young, hot star located in the Orion Nebula. The star, LL Ori emits a powerful solar wind that collides with the slower moving gas of the Orion Nebula. This bow shock, similar to that found at the front of a boat, is formed where the two winds collide.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope continues to reveal various stunning and intricate treasures that reside within the nearby, intense star-forming region known as the Great Nebula in Orion. One such jewel is the bow shock around the very young star, 1998 WW31, featured in this Hubble Heritage image.

Named for the crescent-shaped wave made by a ship as it moves through water, a bow shock can be created in space when two streams of gas collide. LL Ori emits a vigorous solar wind, a stream of charged particles moving rapidly outward from the star. Our own Sun has a less energetic version of this wind that is responsible for auroral displays on the Earth.

The material in the fast wind from LL Ori collides with slow-moving gas evaporating away from the center of the Orion Nebula, which is located to the lower right in this Heritage image. The surface where the two winds collide is the crescent-shaped bow shock seen in the image.

Unlike a water wave made by a ship, this interstellar bow shock is a three-dimensional structure. The filamentary emission has a very distinct boundary on the side facing away from LL Ori, but is diffuse on the side closest to the star, a characteristic common to many bow shocks.

A second, fainter bow shock can be seen around a star near the upper right-hand corner of the Heritage image. Astronomers have identified numerous shock fronts in this complex star-forming region and are using this data to understand the many complex phenomena associated with the birth of stars.

This image was taken in February 1995 as part of the Hubble Orion Nebula mosaic. A close visitor in our Milky Way galaxy, the nebula is only 1,500 light-years from Earth. The filters used in this color composite represent oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen emissions.

Original Source: Hubble News Release

Image credit: NASA

During a seven and a half hour spacewalk today, astronauts James Newman and Michael Massimino installed the Advanced Camera for Surveys onto the Hubble Space Telescope – a camera system ten times more powerful than what Hubble had previously. This is the fourth of five spacewalks carried out by the Columbia crew, who are due to return back to Earth on March 12th. The next spacewalk is due for Friday.
Following today?s successful installation of the new Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists will be able to see farther into our universe and with greater clarity and speed than ever before.

Columbia?s spacewalkers, Jim Newman and Mike Massimino, began the first science instrument upgrade of this servicing mission at 3 a.m. central time. The duo, with Newman on the shuttle?s robotic arm, began by removing the last of Hubble?s original science instruments, the Faint Object Camera to make room for the ACS. Newman and Massimino first opened Hubble?s aft shroud doors, removing the Faint Object Camera and temporarily stowing it at the edge of Columbia?s payload bay. After installing the ACS in the Hubble, Newman and Massimino stowed the old camera in the payload bay for its return to Earth.

Then Massimino, on the shuttle?s robotic arm, installed the Electronic Support Module in the aft shroud, with Newman?s assistance. That module will support a new experimental cooling system to be installed during tomorrow?s fifth and final scheduled spacewalk of the mission. That cooling system is designed to bring the telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) back to life.

Finally, Newman and Massimino completed some remaining cleanup tasks from yesterday?s Power Control Unit installation.

During the first half of the spacewalk, mission specialist Nancy Currie operated the shuttle?s robotic arm, providing transportation to and from the various worksites on both the Hubble and in Columbia?s payload bay ? Commander Scott Altman then took over operation of the arm to maneuver Massimino through his tasks.

Fellow spacewalkers John Grunsfeld and Rick Linnehan worked from inside the shuttle to choreograph the spacewalk, as Altman and Pilot Duane Carey continued to provide photo and video documentation of the work.

Initial functional tests on the ACS and the electronics module conducted by the Space Telescope Operations Control Center in Greenbelt, Md. were both good. Functional tests of the telescope’s scientific instruments will not be completed, however, until after the telescope is released from Columbia and its aperture door is opened.

The crew is to begin its sleep period at 2:52 p.m. CST. The next STS-109 mission status report will be issued Thursday evening following crew wake-up, or as events warrant.

Original Source: NASA News Release

Spacewalking astronauts spent their second day outside the space shuttle Columbia on Tuesday, adding a second new solar array to the Hubble Space Telescope. During the 7-hour, 16-minute spacewalk, astronauts James Newman and Michael Massimino also replaced one of the telescope’s stabilizing gyroscopes. The newly installed solar arrays are smaller than the telescope’s previous arrays, but they actually provide 20% more power. Three more spacewalks are still planned.

The latest image released from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a spiral galaxy that seems to be rotating in the wrong direction. Astronomers expected that galaxy NGC 4622, located 111 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus, should rotate counter-clockwise but it actually goes clockwise. It’s believed that the galaxy consumed a smaller companion galaxy recently which helped reverse its spin.