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Pretty as a Picture
The Hubble community bids fa
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5/11/09
| Description |
The Hubble community bids farewell to the soon-to-be decommissioned Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. In tribute to Hubble's longest-running optical camera, a planetary nebula has been imaged as WFPC2's final "pretty picture." This planetary nebula is known as Kohoutek 4-55 (or K 4-55). It is one of a series of planetary nebulae that were named after their discoverer, Czech astronomer Lubos Kohoutek. A planetary nebula contains the outer layers of a red giant star that were expelled into interstellar space when the star was in the late stages of its life. Ultraviolet radiation emitted from the remaining hot core of the star ionizes the ejected gas shells, causing them to glow. In the case of K 4-55, a bright inner ring is surrounded by a bipolar structure. The entire system is then surrounded by a faint red halo, seen in the emission by nitrogen gas. This multi-shell structure is fairly uncommon in planetary nebulae. This Hubble image was taken by WFPC2 on May 4, 2009. The colors represent the makeup of the various emission clouds in the nebula: red represents nitrogen, green represents hydrogen, and blue represents oxygen. K 4-55 is nearly 4,600 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. The WFPC2 instrument, which was installed in 1993 to replace the original Wide Field/Planetary Camera, will be removed to make room for Wide Field Camera 3 during the STS-125 mission. During the camera's amazing, nearly 16-year run, WFPC2 provided outstanding science and spectacular images of the cosmos. Some of its best-remembered images are of the Eagle Nebula pillars, Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9's impacts on Jupiter's atmosphere, and the 1995 Hubble Deep Field -- the longest and deepest Hubble optical image of its time. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) and R. Sahai and J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) |
| Date |
5/11/09 |
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Hubble Image of He2-90
This mysterious object that
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8/31/00
| Date |
8/31/00 |
| Description |
This mysterious object that seems to defy classification was found by astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The object has been classified as a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a Sun-like star in its death throes, although the Hubble observations suggest it may not fit that classification, either. A quick glance at the Hubble picture at top shows that the object, He2-90, looks like a young, dust-enshrouded star with narrow jets of material resembling strings of beads streaming from each side. The other light streaks running diagonally from He2-90 are artificial effects of the telescope's optical system. Each jet possesses at least six bright clumps of gas speeding along at rates estimated to be at least 600,000 kilometers an hour (375,000 miles an hour). These gaseous clumps are ejected into space about every 100 years and may be caused by periodic instabilities in He2-90's accretion disk. Jets from very young stars behave in a similar way. Deep images taken from a terrestrial observatory show each jet extending at least 100,000 astronomical units (one astronomical unit equals the Earth-Sun distance, 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles). The Hubble astronomers, Dr. Raghvendra Sahai of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Lars-Ake Nyman of the European Southern Observatory, Chile, and Onsala Space Observatory, Sweden, suspect that He2-9 is a pair of aging stars masquerading as a single youngster. One member of the duo is a bloated red giant star shedding matter from its outer layers. This matter is then captured by gravity in a rotating accretion disk around a compact partner, most likely a young white dwarf (the collapsed remnant of a Sun-like star). The stars are not visible in the Hubble images because they're obscured by a disk of dust. The jets' relatively modest speed implies that one member of the duo is a white dwarf. An accretion disk needs gravity to form. For gravity to create He2-90's disk, the two stars must reside at a cozy distance from each other: within about 10 astronomical units. Astronomers are uncertain about the details, but they believe that magnetic fields associated with accretion disks produce and constrict the pencil-thin jets seen in the Hubble image. The close-up Hubble photo at bottom shows a dark, flaring, disk-like structure (off-center) bisecting the bright light from the object. The disk is seen edge-on. Although this disk is too large to be an accretion disk, it may provide indirect proof of the disk's existence. Most theories for producing jets require the presence of an accretion disk. The round, white objects at the lower left and upper right corners are two bright clumps of gas in the jets, which are close to the companion star. The astronomers traced the jets to within 1,000 astronomical units of the central obscured star. The star ejected this material about 30 years ago. This oddball star was discovered during an imaging survey of planetary nebulae. The images were taken Sept. 28, 1999 with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The images and results appear in the Aug. 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters. JPL designed and built the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md, manages space operations for the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. ##### |
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WFPC2--Horsehead Nebula
In honor of the 11th birthda
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4/24/01
| Date |
4/24/01 |
| Description |
In honor of the 11th birthday of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, and by popular demand, the Hubble team has released this new image of the Horsehead nebula, taken by its Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Last year, 5,000 online voters, including students, teachers, and professional and amateur astronomers, chose the nebula as an astronomical target for Hubble to observe. Rising from a sea of dust and gas like a giant seahorse, the Horsehead nebula is one of the most photographed objects in the sky. Hubble's WFPC2 camera took a close-up look at this heavenly icon, revealing the cloud's intricate structure. The Horsehead, also known as Barnard 33, is a cold, dark cloud of gas and dust silhouetted against the bright red nebula IC 434. The bright area at the top left edge is a young star still embedded in its nursery of gas and dust. But radiation from this hot star is eroding the stellar nursery. The top of the nebula also is being sculpted by radiation from a massive star located out of Hubble's field-of-view. The nebula was first discovered on a photographic plate in the late 1800s. It is located in the constellation Orion just south of the bright star Zeta Orionis, which is easily visible to the unaided eye as the left-hand star in the line of three that form Orion's Belt. This image was composed by the Hubble Heritage Team at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md. The team superimposed Hubble data onto ground-based data taken by Nigel A. Sharp at the .9-meter (35-inch) telescope at the National Science Foundation's Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. Additional images and an animation of the Horsehead nebula are available at http://heritage.stsci.edu/public/2001may/supplemental.html . NASA's Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990. The Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). JPL, which designed and built the WFPC2 camera, is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope and more images are available at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about WFPC2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov . Image Credit: NASA, NOAO, ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Acknowledgment: K. Noll (Hubble Heritage PI/STScI), C. Luginbuhl (USNO), F. Hamilton (Hubble Heritage/STScI) ##### |
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Hubble Follows the Rotation
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| title |
Hubble Follows the Rotation of the Asteroid Vesta |
| description |
This is a NASA Hubble Space Telescope series of 24 images showing the full 5.34-hour rotation of the 325-mile diameter (525 kilometer) asteroid Vesta. Hubble resolves features as small as 50 miles across, allowing astronomers to map Vesta's geologically diverse terrain. The surface is a complex record of Vesta's four billion-year history. Features include ancient lava flows, and a gigantic impact basin that is so deep, it exposes the asteroid's subsurface, or mantle. This sequence was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 between November 28 and December 1, 1994, when Vesta was at a distance of 156 million miles from Earth. When combined with ground-based data, astronomers will be able to make the first geochemical map of Vesta's surface. *Image Credit*: B. Zellner (Georgia Southern University) and NASA |
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Hubble Captures Full View of
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| title |
Hubble Captures Full View of Uranus's Rings on Edge |
| date |
08.14.2007 |
| description |
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures a rare view of the entire ring system of the planet Uranus, tilted edge-on to Earth. The rings were photographed with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on August 14, 2007. The edge-on rings appear as spikes above and below the planet. The rings cannot be seen running fully across the face of the planet because the bright glare of the planet has been blocked out in the HST photo (a small amount of residual glare appears as a fan-shaped image artifact, along with an edge between the exposure for the inner and outer rings). A much shorter color exposure of the planet has been photo-composited to show its size and position relative to the ring plane. Earthbound astronomers only see the rings' edge every 42 years as the planet follows a leisurely 84-year orbit about the Sun. However, the last time the rings were tilted edge-on to Earth astronomers didn't even know they existed. The fainter outer rings appear in the 2003 Hubble Space Telescope images, but were not noticed there until they were seen in the 2005 images and the previous ones were analyzed more carefully. Uranus has a total of 13 dusty rings. Credit: NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/ ], ESA [ http://www.spacetelescope.org/ ], and M. Showalter (SETI Institute) |
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Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 Fra
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| title |
Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 Fragments |
| date |
05.17.1994 |
| description |
Last panoramic mosaic of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL-9) taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The comet had broken into 21 fragments, all of which impacted Jupiter in mid-July of 1994. This image was taken on 17 May 1994 through the red filter of the Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2. At this time, the comet was about 660 million km from Earth. The comet fragments stretch across 1.1 million km of space. (HST, STScI-PR94-26d) *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Hubble Captures Detailed Ima
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| title |
Hubble Captures Detailed Image of Uranus' Atmosphere |
| date |
07.03.1995 |
| description |
Hubble Space Telescope has peered deep into Uranus' atmosphere to see clear and hazy layers created by a mixture of gases. Using infrared filters, Hubble captured detailed features of three layers of Uranus' atmosphere. Hubble's images are different from the ones taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which flew by Uranus 10 years ago. Those images - not taken in infrared light - showed a greenish-blue disk with very little detail. The infrared image allows astronomers to probe the structure of Uranus' atmosphere, which consists of mostly hydrogen with traces of methane. The red around the planet's edge represents a very thin haze at a high altitude. The haze is so thin that it can only be seen by looking at the edges of the disk, and is similar to looking at the edge of a soap bubble. The yellow near the bottom of Uranus is another hazy layer. The deepest layer, the blue near the top of Uranus, shows a clearer atmosphere. Image processing has been used to brighten the rings around Uranus so that astronomers can study their structure. In reality, the rings are as dark as black lava or charcoal. This false color picture was assembled from several exposures taken July 3, 1995 by the Wide Field Planetary Camera-2. The Wide Field/Planetary Camera 2 was developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and managed by the Goddard Spaced Flight Center for NASA's Office of Space Science. This image and other images and data received from the Hubble Space Telescope are posted on the World Wide Web on the Space Telescope Science Institute home page at URL http://oposite.stsci.edu *Image Credit*: Erich Karkoschka (University of Arizona Lunar & Planetary Lab) and NASA |
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Hubble Spots Northern Hemisp
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| title |
Hubble Spots Northern Hemispheric Clouds on Uranus |
| date |
07.31.1997 |
| description |
Using visible light, astronomers for the first time this century have detected clouds in the northern hemisphere of Uranus. The newest images, taken July 31 and Aug. 1, 1997 with NASA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, show banded structure and multiple clouds. Using these images, Dr. Heidi Hammel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and colleagues Wes Lockwood (Lowell Observatory) and Kathy Rages (NASA Ames Research Center) plan to measure the wind speeds in the northern hemisphere for the first time. Uranus is sometimes called the "sideways" planet, because its rotation axis tipped more than 90 degrees from the planet's orbit around the Sun. The "year" on Uranus lasts 84 Earth years, which creates extremely long seasons - winter in the northern hemisphere has lasted for nearly 20 years. Uranus has also been called bland and boring, because no clouds have been detectable in ground-based images of the planet. Even to the cameras of the Voyager spacecraft in 1986, Uranus presented a nearly uniform blank disk, and discrete clouds were detectable only in the southern hemisphere. Voyager flew over the planet's cloud tops near the dead of northern winter (when the northern hemisphere was completely shrouded in darkness). Spring has finally come to the northern hemisphere of Uranus. The newest images, both the visible-wavelength ones described here and those taken a few days earlier with the Near Infrared and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) by Erich Karkoschka (University of Arizona), show a planet with banded structure and detectable clouds. Two images are shown here. The "aqua" image (on the left) is taken at 5,470 Angstroms, which is near the human eye's peak response to wavelength. Color has been added to the image to show what a person on a spacecraft near Uranus might see. Little structure is evident at this wavelength, though with image-processing techniques, a small cloud can be seen near the planet's northern limb (rightmost edge). The "red" image (on the right) is taken at 6,190 Angstroms, and is sensitive to absorption by methane molecules in the planet's atmosphere. The banded structure of Uranus is evident, and the small cloud near the northern limb is now visible. Scientists are expecting that the discrete clouds and banded structure may become even more pronounced as Uranus continues in its slow pace around the Sun. "Some parts of Uranus haven't seen the Sun in decades," says Dr. Hammel, "and historical records suggest that we may see the development of more banded structure and patchy clouds as the planet's year progresses." Some scientists have speculated that the winds of Uranus are not symmetric around the planet's equator, but no clouds were visible to test those theories. The new data will provide the opportunity to measure the northern winds. Hammel and colleagues expect to have results soon. The Wide Field/Planetary Camera 2 was developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and managed by, the Goddard Spaced Flight Center for NASA's Office of Space Science. This image and other images and data received from the Hubble Space Telescope are posted on the World Wide Web on the Space Telescope Science Institute home page at URL http://oposite.stsci.edu *Image Credit*: Heidi Hammel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), NASA |
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Neptune's Stormy Disposition
| title |
Neptune's Stormy Disposition |
| date |
08.11.1998 |
| description |
Using powerful ground-and space-based telescopes, scientists have obtained a moving look at some of the wildest, weirdest weather in the solar system. Combining simultaneous observations of Neptune made with the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, a team of scientists led by Lawrence A. Sromovsky of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has captured the most insightful images to date of a planet whose blustery weather -- monster storms and equatorial winds of 900 miles per hour -- bewilders scientists. The weather on Neptune, the eighth planet from the sun, is an enigma to begin with. The mechanism that drives its near-supersonic winds and giant storms has yet to be determined. On Earth, weather is driven by energy from the sun as it heats the atmosphere and oceans. On Neptune, the sun is 900 times dimmer and scientists have yet to understand how Neptune's weather-generating machinery can be so efficient. "It's an efficient weather machine compared to Earth," said Sromovsky. "It seems to run on almost no energy." In an effort to dissect the distant planet's atmosphere and monitor its bizarre weather, Sromovsky and his colleagues obtained a series of measurements and images over the span of three of Neptune's rotations. From those observations, Sromovsky said it is possible to measure Neptune's circulation and view a "strange menagerie of variable, discrete cloud features and zonal bands" of weather. Moreover, the new observations enabled Sromovsky's team to probe some of the deeper features of the atmosphere and to map Neptune's cloud tops. "We can show some clouds are higher than others, that altitudes vary," he said. Knowing something about the topography of Neptune's clouds, provides a direct way to measure Neptune's powerful winds. A looming mystery, he said, is the fate of huge dark spots, possibly giant storms. When the planetary probe Voyager visited Neptune in 1989, it detected the Great Dark Spot, a pulsating feature nearly the size of the Earth itself. Two years ago, Hubble observations showed the spot had disappeared, and that another, smaller spot had emerged. But instead of growing to a large-scale storm like the Great Dark Spot, the new spot appears to be trapped at a fixed latitude and may be declining in intensity, said Sromovsky, a senior scientist at UW-Madison's Space Science and Engineering Center. "They behave like storms, and the Great Dark Spot was an exaggerated features we haven't seen on any other planet. They seem to come and go, and rather than an exciting development of these dark spots, they dissipate." Another strange aspect of the distant planet's weather are distinct bands of weather that run parallel to the Neptunian equator. The weather bands encircle the planet and, in some respects, may be similar to the equatorial region of the Earth where tropical heat provides abundant energy to make clouds. "We can see regions of latitude where Neptune, consistently generates bright clouds," said Sromovsky. The regions are both above and below the planet's equator, but he added that it was uncertain what their explanation is in terms of atmospheric circulation. Sromovsky said that compared to the look provided by the Voyager spacecraft, Neptune is a different place: "The character of Neptune is different from what it was at the time of Voyager. The planet seems stable, yet different." Sromovsky's Hubble observations were made with Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer. The different instruments allowed observations to be made in a variety of wavelengths, each providing a different set of information about Neptune's clouds, their structures and how they circulate. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Hubble Tracks Clouds on Uran
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| title |
Hubble Tracks Clouds on Uranus |
| date |
07.28.1997 |
| description |
Taking its first peek at Uranus, NASA Hubble Space Telescope's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) has detected six distinct clouds in images taken July 28,1997. The image on the right, taken 90 minutes after the left-hand image, shows the planet's rotation. Each image is a composite of three near-infrared images. They are called false-color images because the human eye cannot detect infrared light. Therefore, colors corresponding to visible light were assigned to the images. (The wavelengths for the "blue,""green," and "red" exposures are 1.1, 1.6, and 1.9 micrometers, respectively.) At visible and near-infrared light, sunlight is reflected from hazes and clouds in the atmosphere of Uranus. However, at near-infrared light, absorption by gases in the Uranian atmosphere limits the view to different altitudes, causing intense contrasts and colors. In these images, the blue exposure probes the deepest atmospheric levels. A blue color indicates clear atmospheric conditions, prevalent at mid-latitudes near the center of the disk. The green exposure is sensitive to absorption by methane gas, indicating a clear atmosphere, but in hazy atmospheric regions, the green color is seen because sunlight is reflected back before it is absorbed. The green color around the south pole (marked by "+") shows a strong local haze. The red exposure reveals absorption by hydrogen, the most abundant gas in the atmosphere of Uranus. Most sunlight shows patches of haze high in the atmosphere. A red color near the limb (edge) of the disk indicates the presence of a high-altitude haze. The purple color to the right of the equator also suggests haze high in the atmosphere with a clear atmosphere below. The five clouds visible near the right limb rotated counterclockwise during the time between both images. They reach high into the atmosphere, as indicated by their red color. Features of such high contrast have never been seen before on Uranus. The clouds are almost as large as continents on Earth, such as Europe. Another cloud (which barely can be seen) rotated along the path shown by the black arrow. It is located at lower altitudes, as indicated by its green color. The rings of Uranus are extremely faint in visible light but quite prominent in the near infrared. The brightest ring, the epsilon ring, has a variable width around its circumference. Its widest and thus brightest part is at the top in this image. Two fainter, inner rings are visible next to the epsilon ring. Eight of the 10 small Uranian satellites, discovered by Voyager 2, can be seen in both images. Their sizes range from about 25 miles (40 kilometers) for Bianca to 100 miles (150 kilometers) for Puck. The smallest of these satellites have not been detected since the departure of Voyager 2 from Uranus in 1986. These eight satellites revolve around Uranus in less than a day. The inner ones are faster than the outer ones. Their motion in the 90 minutes between both images is, marked in the right panel. The area outside the rings was slightly enhanced in brightness to improve the visibility of these faint satellites. The Wide Field/Planetary Camera 2 was developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and managed by the Goddard Spaced Flight Center for NASA's Office of Space Science. This image and other images and data received from the Hubble Space Telescope are posted on the World Wide Web on the Space Telescope Science Institute home page at URL http://oposite.stsci.edu/ *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Life Cycle of Stars
| Title |
Life Cycle of Stars |
| Full Description |
In this stunning picture of the giant galactic nebula NGC 3603, the crisp resolution of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures various stages of the life cycle of stars in one single view. To the upper left of center is the evolved blue supergiant called Sher 25. The star has a unique circumstellar ring of glowing gas that is a galactic twin to the famous ring around the supernova 1987A. The grayish-bluish color of the ring and the bipolar outflows (blobs to the upper right and lower left of the star) indicates the presence of processed (chemically enriched) material. Near the center of the view is a so-called starburst cluster dominated by young, hot Wolf-Rayet stars and early O-type stars. A torrent of ionizing radiation and fast stellar winds from these massive stars has blown a large cavity around the cluster. The most spectacular evidence for the interaction of ionizing radiation with cold molecular-hydrogen cloud material are the giant gaseous pillars to the right of the cluster. These pillars are sculptured by the same physical processes as the famous pillars Hubble photographed in the M16 Eagle Nebula. Dark clouds at the upper right are so-called Bok globules, which are probably in an earlier stage of star formation. To the lower left of the cluster are two compact, tadpole-shaped emission nebulae. Similar structures were found by Hubble in Orion, and have been interpreted as gas and dust evaporation from possibly protoplanetary disks (proplyds). This true-color picture was taken on March 5, 1999 with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. |
| Date |
03/05/1999 |
| NASA Center |
Hubble Space Telescope Center |
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Hubble Provides the First Im
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| Title |
Hubble Provides the First Images of Saturn's Aurorae |
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Hubble Tracks Jupiter Storms
| Title |
Hubble Tracks Jupiter Storms |
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Hubble Follows Rapid Changes
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| Title |
Hubble Follows Rapid Changes in Jupiter's Aurora |
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Hubble Finds Searchlight Bea
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| Title |
Hubble Finds Searchlight Beams and Multiple Arcs around a Dying Star |
| General Information |
What is an American Astronomical Society Meeting release? A major news announcement issued at an American Astronomical Society meeting, the premier astronomy conference. This Hubble telescope picture of the Egg Nebula, also known as CRL2688, shows a pair of mysterious "searchlight" beams emerging from a hidden star and criss-crossed by numerous bright arcs. This image sheds new light on the poorly understood ejection of stellar matter that accompanies the slow death of Sun-like stars. The nebula is really a large cloud of dust and gas ejected by the star, expanding at a speed of 115,000 mph (20 km/s). A dense cocoon of dust [the dark band in the center] enshrouds the star and hides it from our view. Starlight escapes more easily in directions where the cocoon is thinner and is reflected towards us by dust particles in the cloud, giving it its overall appearance. Objects like CRL2688 are rare because they are in a very short evolutionary phase. However, they may hold the key to our understanding of how red giant stars transform themselves into planetary nebulae, the glowing remnants of dying stars. |
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Hubble Snapshot Captures Lif
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| Title |
Hubble Snapshot Captures Life Cycle of Stars |
| General Information |
What is an American Astronomical Society Meeting release? A major news announcement issued at an American Astronomical Society meeting, the premier astronomy conference. In this stunning picture of the giant galactic nebula NGC 3603, the Hubble telescope's crisp resolution captures various stages of the life cycle of stars in one single view. This picture nicely illustrates the entire stellar life cycle of stars, starting with the Bok globules and giant gaseous pillars (evidence of embryonic stars), followed by circumstellar disks around young stars, and progressing to aging, massive stars in a young starburst cluster. The blue super-giant with its ring and bipolar outflow [upper left of center] marks the end of the life cycle. |
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Astronomers Track Down Aster
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| Title |
Astronomers Track Down Asteroids in Hubble Archive |
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Hubble Discovers Missing Pie
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| Title |
Hubble Discovers Missing Pieces of Comet Linear |
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Vast Stellar Disks Set Stage
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| Title |
Vast Stellar Disks Set Stage for Planet Birth in New Hubble Images |
| General Information |
What is a Space Science Update? Major Hubble discoveries on NASA television ... Astronomers explain their Hubble discoveries at a press conference, called a Space Science Update (SSU), broadcast on NASA television. The SSU includes a question and answer session with members of the media. Dramatic pictures of eerie disks of dust encircling young stars are giving astronomers a new look at what may be the early formative stages of planetary systems. Although these pictures from the Hubble telescope don't show planets, the edge-on disks seen by the telescope provide some of the clearest views to date of potential planetary construction zones, say researchers. The images also offer a peek at what happened 4.5 billion years ago when the Earth and other planets in our solar system began to condense out of a pancake-shaped disk of dust and gas centered on the young Sun. These images were taken by Hubble's infrared camera. All of the objects in these pictures are extremely young stars, buried in the centers of these pictures. The wisps of material surrounding the young stars are glowing from reflected starlight. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1999/05/text/ ] |
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Vast Stellar Disks Set Stage
…
| Title |
Vast Stellar Disks Set Stage for Planet Birth in New Hubble Images |
| General Information |
What is a Space Science Update? Major Hubble discoveries on NASA television ... Astronomers explain their Hubble discoveries at a press conference, called a Space Science Update (SSU), broadcast on NASA television. The SSU includes a question and answer session with members of the media. Dramatic pictures of eerie disks of dust encircling young stars are giving astronomers a new look at what may be the early formative stages of planetary systems. Although these pictures from the Hubble telescope don't show planets, the edge-on disks seen by the telescope provide some of the clearest views to date of potential planetary construction zones, say researchers. The images also offer a peek at what happened 4.5 billion years ago when the Earth and other planets in our solar system began to condense out of a pancake-shaped disk of dust and gas centered on the young Sun. These images were taken by Hubble's infrared camera. All of the objects in these pictures are extremely young stars, buried in the centers of these pictures. The wisps of material surrounding the young stars are glowing from reflected starlight. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1999/05/text/ ] |
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Vast Stellar Disks Set Stage
…
| Title |
Vast Stellar Disks Set Stage for Planet Birth in New Hubble Images |
| General Information |
What is a Space Science Update? Major Hubble discoveries on NASA television ... Astronomers explain their Hubble discoveries at a press conference, called a Space Science Update (SSU), broadcast on NASA television. The SSU includes a question and answer session with members of the media. Dramatic pictures of eerie disks of dust encircling young stars are giving astronomers a new look at what may be the early formative stages of planetary systems. Although these pictures from the Hubble telescope don't show planets, the edge-on disks seen by the telescope provide some of the clearest views to date of potential planetary construction zones, say researchers. The images also offer a peek at what happened 4.5 billion years ago when the Earth and other planets in our solar system began to condense out of a pancake-shaped disk of dust and gas centered on the young Sun. These images were taken by Hubble's infrared camera. All of the objects in these pictures are extremely young stars, buried in the centers of these pictures. The wisps of material surrounding the young stars are glowing from reflected starlight. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1999/05/text/ ] |
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Vast Stellar Disks Set Stage
…
| Title |
Vast Stellar Disks Set Stage for Planet Birth in New Hubble Images |
| General Information |
What is a Space Science Update? Major Hubble discoveries on NASA television ... Astronomers explain their Hubble discoveries at a press conference, called a Space Science Update (SSU), broadcast on NASA television. The SSU includes a question and answer session with members of the media. Dramatic pictures of eerie disks of dust encircling young stars are giving astronomers a new look at what may be the early formative stages of planetary systems. Although these pictures from the Hubble telescope don't show planets, the edge-on disks seen by the telescope provide some of the clearest views to date of potential planetary construction zones, say researchers. The images also offer a peek at what happened 4.5 billion years ago when the Earth and other planets in our solar system began to condense out of a pancake-shaped disk of dust and gas centered on the young Sun. These images were taken by Hubble's infrared camera. All of the objects in these pictures are extremely young stars, buried in the centers of these pictures. The wisps of material surrounding the young stars are glowing from reflected starlight. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1999/05/text/ ] |
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IC 418: The "Spirograph" Neb
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| Title |
IC 418: The "Spirograph" Nebula |
| General Information |
What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ] |
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Astronomers Puzzled over Com
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| Title |
Astronomers Puzzled over Comet LINEAR's Missing Pieces |
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Freewheeling Galaxies Collid
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| Title |
Freewheeling Galaxies Collide in a Blaze of Star Birth |
| General Information |
What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ] |
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Brighter Neptune Suggests a
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| Title |
Brighter Neptune Suggests a Planetary Change of Seasons |
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Celestial Fireworks
| Title |
Celestial Fireworks |
| General Information |
What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ] |
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Megastar-Birth Cluster is Bi
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| Title |
Megastar-Birth Cluster is Biggest, Brightest and Hottest Ever Seen |
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Thompson and NICMOS Team Win
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| Title |
Thompson and NICMOS Team Win Muhlmann Award |
| General Information |
What is a News Nugget? News Nuggets are bulletins from the world of astronomy. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) has awarded its 2003 Maria and Eric Muhlmann Award to Professor Rodger I. Thompson (University of Arizona) and the team that developed the Hubble Space Telescope's NICMOS instrument, the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2003/33/text/ ] |
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Megastar-Birth Cluster is Bi
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| Title |
Megastar-Birth Cluster is Biggest, Brightest and Hottest Ever Seen |
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Tale of Two Clusters Yields
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| Title |
Tale of Two Clusters Yields Secrets of Star Birth in the Early Universe |
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AC94-0353-1
Photo Credit: STSI/JPL This
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7/7/94
| Description |
Photo Credit: STSI/JPL This is a composite photo, assembled from separate images of Jupiter and Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 as imaged by the Wide Field & Planetary Camera-2 (WFPC-2), aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Jupiter was imaged on May 18, 1994, when the giant planet was at a distance of 420 million miles (670 million KM) from Earth. This "true-color" picture was assembled from separate HST exposures in red, blue, and green light. Jupiter's rotation between exposures creates the blue and red fringe on either side of the disk. HST can resolve details in Jpiter's magnifient cloud belts and zones as small as 200 miles (320 km) across (wide field mode). This detailed view is only surpassed by images from spacecraft that have traveled to Jupiter. The dark spot on the disk of Jupiter is the shadow of the inner moon Io. This volcanic moon appears as an orange and yellow disk just to the upper right of the shadow. Though Io is approximately the size of Earth's Moon (but 2,000 times farther away), HST can resolve surface details. When the comet was observed on May 17, its train of 21 icy fragments stretched across 710 thousand miles (1.1 million km) of space, or 3 times the distance between Earth and the Moon. This required six WFPC exposures along the comet train to include all the nuclei. The image was taken in red light. The apparent angular size of Jupiter relative to the comet, and its angular separation from the comet when the images were taken, have been modified for illustration purposes. CREDIT: H.A. Weaver, T.E. Smith (Space Telescope Science Institute (STSI)) and J.T. Tranuger, R.W. Evans (Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)) and NASA. (HST ref: STSci-PR94-26a) |
| Date |
7/7/94 |
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At the Edge of the Helix Cre
…
| Title |
At the Edge of the Helix Credit: R. O'Dell and K. Handron (Rice University [ http://spacsun.rice.edu/ ]), NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/ ] |
| Explanation |
While exploring the inner edge of the Helix Nebula [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960417.html ] with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/sespd/astro.html ], astronomers were able to produce this striking image - rich in details of an exotic environment. This planetary nebula [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/lib/planetary.html ], created near the final phase of a sun-like star's life [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960117.html ], is composed of tenuous shells of gas ejected by the hot central star. The atoms of gas, stripped of electrons by ultraviolet radiation from the central star, radiate light at characteristic energies allowing specific chemical elements to be identified. In this image [ http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/13.html ], emission from nitrogen is represented as red, hydrogen emission as green, and oxygen as blue. The inner edge of the nebula (the direction to the central star) is toward the bottom right. Clearly visible close to the inner edge are finger shaped "cometary knots" [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960416.html ]. |
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A Change of Seasons on Satur
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| Title |
A Change of Seasons on Saturn |
| Description |
Looming like a giant flying saucer in our outer solar system, Saturn puts on a show as the planet and its magnificent ring system nod majestically over the course of its 29-year journey around the Sun. These Hubble Space Telescope images, captured from 1996 to 2000, show Saturn's rings open up from just past edge-on to nearly fully open as it moves from autumn towards winter in its Northern Hemisphere (For individual images see:PIA03158 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03158 ],PIA03159 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03159 ],PIA03160 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03160 ],PIA03161 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03161 ], andPIA03162 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03162 ]. Saturn's equator is tilted relative to its orbit by 27 degrees, very similar to the 23-degree tilt of the Earth. As Saturn moves along its orbit, first one hemisphere, then the other is tilted towards the Sun. This cyclical change causes seasons on Saturn, just as the changing orientation of Earth's tilt causes seasons on our planet. The first image in this sequence, on the lower left, was taken soon after the autumnal equinox in Saturn's Northern Hemisphere (which is the same as the spring equinox in its Southern Hemisphere). By the final image in the sequence, on the upper right, the tilt is nearing its extreme, or winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere). Astronomers are studying this set of images to investigate the detailed variations in the color and brightness of the rings. They hope to learn more about the rings' composition, how they were formed, and how long they might last. Saturn's rings are incredibly thin, with a thickness of only about 30 feet (10 meters). The rings are made of dusty water ice, in the form of boulder-sized and smaller chunks that gently collide with each other as they orbit around Saturn. Saturn's gravitational field constantly disrupts these ice chunks, keeping them spread out and preventing them from combining to form a moon. The rings, as shown here, have a slight pale reddish color due to the presence of organic material mixed with the water ice. Saturn is about 75,000 miles (120,000 km) across, and is flattened at the poles because of its very rapid rotation. A day is only 10 hours long on Saturn. Strong winds account for the horizontal bands in the atmosphere of this giant gas planet. The delicate color variations in the clouds are due to smog in the upper atmosphere, produced when ultraviolet radiation from the Sun shines on methane gas. Deeper in the atmosphere, the visible clouds and gases merge gradually into hotter and denser gases, with no solid surface for visiting spacecraft to land on. The Cassini/Huygens spacecraft, launched from Earth in 1997, is well on its way to the Saturn system. It will arrive in 2004 to land a probe on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and to orbit the planet for four years for a detailed, study of the entire Saturn system. These images of Saturn were taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 onboard Hubble. |
| Date |
06.07.2001 |
|
A Change of Seasons on Satur
…
| Title |
A Change of Seasons on Saturn - October, 1996 |
| Description |
Looming like a giant flying saucer in our outer solar system, Saturn puts on a show as the planet and its magnificent ring system nod majestically over the course of its 29-year journey around the Sun. A series of Hubble Space Telescope images, captured from 1996 to 2000, show Saturn's rings open up from just past edge-on to nearly fully open as it moves from autumn towards winter in its Northern Hemisphere (for the composite view of all images seePIA03156 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03156 ]. Saturn's equator is tilted relative to its orbit by 27 degrees, very similar to the 23-degree tilt of the Earth. As Saturn moves along its orbit, first one hemisphere, then the other is tilted towards the Sun. This cyclical change causes seasons on Saturn, just as the changing orientation of Earth's tilt causes seasons on our planet. The first image in this sequence, on the lower left, was taken soon after the autumnal equinox in Saturn's Northern Hemisphere (which is the same as the spring equinox in its Southern Hemisphere). By the final image in the sequence, on the upper right, the tilt is nearing its extreme, or winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere). Astronomers are studying this set of images to investigate the detailed variations in the color and brightness of the rings. They hope to learn more about the rings' composition, how they were formed, and how long they might last. Saturn's rings are incredibly thin, with a thickness of only about 30 feet (10 meters). The rings are made of dusty water ice, in the form of boulder-sized and smaller chunks that gently collide with each other as they orbit around Saturn. Saturn's gravitational field constantly disrupts these ice chunks, keeping them spread out and preventing them from combining to form a moon. The rings, as shown here, have a slight pale reddish color due to the presence of organic material mixed with the water ice. Saturn is about 75,000 miles (120,000 km) across, and is flattened at the poles because of its very rapid rotation. A day is only 10 hours long on Saturn. Strong winds account for the horizontal bands in the atmosphere of this giant gas planet. The delicate color variations in the clouds are due to smog in the upper atmosphere, produced when ultraviolet radiation from the Sun shines on methane gas. Deeper in the atmosphere, the visible clouds and gases merge gradually into hotter and denser gases, with no solid surface for visiting spacecraft to land on. The Cassini/Huygens spacecraft, launched from Earth in 1997, is well on its way to the Saturn system. It will arrive in 2004 to land a probe on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and to orbit the planet for four years for a detailed study of the entire Saturn system. These images of Saturn were taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 onboard Hubble. |
| Date |
06.07.2001 |
|
A Change of Seasons on Satur
…
| Title |
A Change of Seasons on Saturn - October, 1997 |
| Description |
Looming like a giant flying saucer in our outer solar system, Saturn puts on a show as the planet and its magnificent ring system nod majestically over the course of its 29-year journey around the Sun. A series of Hubble Space Telescope images, captured from 1996 to 2000, show Saturn's rings open up from just past edge-on to nearly fully open as it moves from autumn towards winter in its Northern Hemisphere (for the composite view of all images seePIA03156 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03156 ]. Saturn's equator is tilted relative to its orbit by 27 degrees, very similar to the 23-degree tilt of the Earth. As Saturn moves along its orbit, first one hemisphere, then the other is tilted towards the Sun. This cyclical change causes seasons on Saturn, just as the changing orientation of Earth's tilt causes seasons on our planet. The first image in this sequence, on the lower left, was taken soon after the autumnal equinox in Saturn's Northern Hemisphere (which is the same as the spring equinox in its Southern Hemisphere). By the final image in the sequence, on the upper right, the tilt is nearing its extreme, or winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere). Astronomers are studying this set of images to investigate the detailed variations in the color and brightness of the rings. They hope to learn more about the rings' composition, how they were formed, and how long they might last. Saturn's rings are incredibly thin, with a thickness of only about 30 feet (10 meters). The rings are made of dusty water ice, in the form of boulder-sized and smaller chunks that gently collide with each other as they orbit around Saturn. Saturn's gravitational field constantly disrupts these ice chunks, keeping them spread out and preventing them from combining to form a moon. The rings, as shown here, have a slight pale reddish color due to the presence of organic material mixed with the water ice. Saturn is about 75,000 miles (120,000 km) across, and is flattened at the poles because of its very rapid rotation. A day is only 10 hours long on Saturn. Strong winds account for the horizontal bands in the atmosphere of this giant gas planet. The delicate color variations in the clouds are due to smog in the upper atmosphere, produced when ultraviolet radiation from the Sun shines on methane gas. Deeper in the atmosphere, the visible clouds and gases merge gradually into hotter and denser gases, with no solid surface for visiting spacecraft to land on. The Cassini/Huygens spacecraft, launched from Earth in 1997, is well on its way to the Saturn system. It will arrive in 2004 to land a probe on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and to orbit the planet for four years for a detailed study of the entire Saturn system. These images of Saturn were taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 onboard Hubble. |
| Date |
06.07.2001 |
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A Change of Seasons on Satur
…
| Title |
A Change of Seasons on Saturn - October, 1998 |
| Description |
Looming like a giant flying saucer in our outer solar system, Saturn puts on a show as the planet and its magnificent ring system nod majestically over the course of its 29-year journey around the Sun. A series of Hubble Space Telescope images, captured from 1996 to 2000, show Saturn's rings open up from just past edge-on to nearly fully open as it moves from autumn towards winter in its Northern Hemisphere (for the composite view of all images seePIA03156 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03156 ]. Saturn's equator is tilted relative to its orbit by 27 degrees, very similar to the 23-degree tilt of the Earth. As Saturn moves along its orbit, first one hemisphere, then the other is tilted towards the Sun. This cyclical change causes seasons on Saturn, just as the changing orientation of Earth's tilt causes seasons on our planet. The first image in this sequence, on the lower left, was taken soon after the autumnal equinox in Saturn's Northern Hemisphere (which is the same as the spring equinox in its Southern Hemisphere). By the final image in the sequence, on the upper right, the tilt is nearing its extreme, or winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere). Astronomers are studying this set of images to investigate the detailed variations in the color and brightness of the rings. They hope to learn more about the rings' composition, how they were formed, and how long they might last. Saturn's rings are incredibly thin, with a thickness of only about 30 feet (10 meters). The rings are made of dusty water ice, in the form of boulder-sized and smaller chunks that gently collide with each other as they orbit around Saturn. Saturn's gravitational field constantly disrupts these ice chunks, keeping them spread out and preventing them from combining to form a moon. The rings, as shown here, have a slight pale reddish color due to the presence of organic material mixed with the water ice. Saturn is about 75,000 miles (120,000 km) across, and is flattened at the poles because of its very rapid rotation. A day is only 10 hours long on Saturn. Strong winds account for the horizontal bands in the atmosphere of this giant gas planet. The delicate color variations in the clouds are due to smog in the upper atmosphere, produced when ultraviolet radiation from the Sun shines on methane gas. Deeper in the atmosphere, the visible clouds and gases merge gradually into hotter and denser gases, with no solid surface for visiting spacecraft to land on. The Cassini/Huygens spacecraft, launched from Earth in 1997, is well on its way to the Saturn system. It will arrive in 2004 to land a probe on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and to orbit the planet for four years for a detailed study of the entire Saturn system. These images of Saturn were taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 onboard Hubble. |
| Date |
06.07.2001 |
|
A Change of Seasons on Satur
…
| Title |
A Change of Seasons on Saturn - October, 1999 |
| Description |
Looming like a giant flying saucer in our outer solar system, Saturn puts on a show as the planet and its magnificent ring system nod majestically over the course of its 29-year journey around the Sun. A series of Hubble Space Telescope images, captured from 1996 to 2000, show Saturn's rings open up from just past edge-on to nearly fully open as it moves from autumn towards winter in its Northern Hemisphere (for the composite view of all images seePIA03156 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03156 ]. Saturn's equator is tilted relative to its orbit by 27 degrees, very similar to the 23-degree tilt of the Earth. As Saturn moves along its orbit, first one hemisphere, then the other is tilted towards the Sun. This cyclical change causes seasons on Saturn, just as the changing orientation of Earth's tilt causes seasons on our planet. The first image in this sequence, on the lower left, was taken soon after the autumnal equinox in Saturn's Northern Hemisphere (which is the same as the spring equinox in its Southern Hemisphere). By the final image in the sequence, on the upper right, the tilt is nearing its extreme, or winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere). Astronomers are studying this set of images to investigate the detailed variations in the color and brightness of the rings. They hope to learn more about the rings' composition, how they were formed, and how long they might last. Saturn's rings are incredibly thin, with a thickness of only about 30 feet (10 meters). The rings are made of dusty water ice, in the form of boulder-sized and smaller chunks that gently collide with each other as they orbit around Saturn. Saturn's gravitational field constantly disrupts these ice chunks, keeping them spread out and preventing them from combining to form a moon. The rings, as shown here, have a slight pale reddish color due to the presence of organic material mixed with the water ice. Saturn is about 75,000 miles (120,000 km) across, and is flattened at the poles because of its very rapid rotation. A day is only 10 hours long on Saturn. Strong winds account for the horizontal bands in the atmosphere of this giant gas planet. The delicate color variations in the clouds are due to smog in the upper atmosphere, produced when ultraviolet radiation from the Sun shines on methane gas. Deeper in the atmosphere, the visible clouds and gases merge gradually into hotter and denser gases, with no solid surface for visiting spacecraft to land on. The Cassini/Huygens spacecraft, launched from Earth in 1997, is well on its way to the Saturn system. It will arrive in 2004 to land a probe on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and to orbit the planet for four years for a detailed study of the entire Saturn system. These images of Saturn were taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 onboard Hubble. |
| Date |
06.07.2001 |
|
A Change of Seasons on Satur
…
| Title |
A Change of Seasons on Saturn - October, 2000 |
| Description |
Looming like a giant flying saucer in our outer solar system, Saturn puts on a show as the planet and its magnificent ring system nod majestically over the course of its 29-year journey around the Sun. A series of Hubble Space Telescope images, captured from 1996 to 2000, show Saturn's rings open up from just past edge-on to nearly fully open as it moves from autumn towards winter in its Northern Hemisphere (for the composite view of all images seePIA03156 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03156 ]. Saturn's equator is tilted relative to its orbit by 27 degrees, very similar to the 23-degree tilt of the Earth. As Saturn moves along its orbit, first one hemisphere, then the other is tilted towards the Sun. This cyclical change causes seasons on Saturn, just as the changing orientation of Earth's tilt causes seasons on our planet. The first image in this sequence, on the lower left, was taken soon after the autumnal equinox in Saturn's Northern Hemisphere (which is the same as the spring equinox in its Southern Hemisphere). By the final image in the sequence, on the upper right, the tilt is nearing its extreme, or winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere (summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere). Astronomers are studying this set of images to investigate the detailed variations in the color and brightness of the rings. They hope to learn more about the rings' composition, how they were formed, and how long they might last. Saturn's rings are incredibly thin, with a thickness of only about 30 feet (10 meters). The rings are made of dusty water ice, in the form of boulder-sized and smaller chunks that gently collide with each other as they orbit around Saturn. Saturn's gravitational field constantly disrupts these ice chunks, keeping them spread out and preventing them from combining to form a moon. The rings, as shown here, have a slight pale reddish color due to the presence of organic material mixed with the water ice. Saturn is about 75,000 miles (120,000 km) across, and is flattened at the poles because of its very rapid rotation. A day is only 10 hours long on Saturn. Strong winds account for the horizontal bands in the atmosphere of this giant gas planet. The delicate color variations in the clouds are due to smog in the upper atmosphere, produced when ultraviolet radiation from the Sun shines on methane gas. Deeper in the atmosphere, the visible clouds and gases merge gradually into hotter and denser gases, with no solid surface for visiting spacecraft to land on. The Cassini/Huygens spacecraft, launched from Earth in 1997, is well on its way to the Saturn system. It will arrive in 2004 to land a probe on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and to orbit the planet for four years for a detailed study of the entire Saturn system. These images of Saturn were taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 onboard Hubble. |
| Date |
06.07.2001 |
|
Ant nebula
| Title |
Ant nebula |
| Description |
A new Hubble Space Telescope image of a celestial object called the Ant Nebula may shed new light on the future demise of our Sun. The image is available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/wfpc . The nebula, imaged on July 20, 1997, and June 30, 1998, by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, was observed by Drs. Raghvendra Sahai and John Trauger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., Bruce Balick of the University of Washington in Seattle, and Vincent Icke of Leiden University in the Netherlands. JPL designed and built the camera. The Ant Nebula, whose technical name is Mz3, resembles the head and thorax of an ant when observed with ground-based telescopes. The new Hubble image, with 10 times the resolution revealing 100 times more detail, shows the "ant's" body as a pair of fiery lobes protruding from a dying, Sun- like star. The Ant Nebula is located between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth in the southern constellation Norma. The image challenges old ideas about what happens to dying stars. This observation, along with other pictures of various remnants of dying stars called planetary nebulae, shows that our Sun's fate will probably be much more interesting, complex and dramatic than astronomers previously believed. Although the ejection of gas from the dying star in the Ant Nebula is violent, it does not show the chaos one might expect from an ordinary explosion, but instead shows symmetrical patterns. One possibility is that the central star has a closely orbiting companion whose gravitational tidal forces shape the outflowing gas. A second possibility is that as the dying star spins, its strong magnetic fields are wound up into complex shapes like spaghetti in an eggbeater. Electrically charged winds, much like those in our Sun's solar wind but millions of times denser and moving at speeds up to 1,000 kilometers per second (more than 600 miles per second) from the star, follow the twisted field lines on their way out into space. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is available at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is available at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov. |
| Date |
12.10.1999 |
|
N44C nebula
| Title |
N44C nebula |
| Description |
Resembling the hair in Botticelli's famous portrait of the birth of Venus, an image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured softly glowing filaments streaming from hot young stars in a nearby nebula. The image, presented by the Hubble Heritage Project, was taken in 1996 by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The image is available online at http://heritage.stsci.edu , http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2002/12 orhttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc . On the top right of the image is a source of its artistic likeness, a network of nebulous filaments surrounding the Wolf-Rayet star. This type of rare star is characterized by an exceptionally vigorous "wind" of charged particles. The shock of the wind colliding with the surrounding gas causes the gas to glow. The Wolf-Rayet star is part of N44C, a nebula of glowing hydrogen gas surrounding young stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Visible from the Southern Hemisphere, the Large Magellanic Cloud is a small companion galaxy to the Milky Way. What makes N44C peculiar is the temperature of the star that illuminates it. The most massive stars -- those that are 10 to 50 times more massive than the Sun -- have maximum temperatures of 30,000 to 50,000 degrees Celsius (54,000 to 90,000 degrees Fahrenheit). The temperature of this star is about 75,000 degrees Celsius (135,000 degrees Fahrenheit). This unusually high temperature may be due to a neutron star or black hole that occasionally produces X-rays but is now inactive. N44C is part of a larger complex that includes young, hot, massive stars, nebulae, and a "superbubble" blown out by multiple supernova explosions. Part of the superbubble is seen in red at the very bottom left of the Hubble image. The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. |
| Date |
12.03.1999 |
|
Orion Nebula and Bow Shock
| Title |
Orion Nebula and Bow Shock |
| Description |
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a bow shock around a very young star in the nearby Orion nebula, an intense star-forming region of gas and dust. A picture, from the Hubble Heritage team, is available at http://heritage.stsci.edu or http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2002/05 or http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc . It was taken in February 1995 as part of the Hubble Orion Nebula mosaic by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Named for the crescent-shaped wave a ship makes as it moves through water, a bow shock can form in space when two gas streams collide. In this case, the young star, LL Ori, emits a vigorous 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 spewed from LL Ori collides with slow-moving gas evaporating away from the center of the Orion nebula, located to the lower right of the image. The surface where the two winds collide is seen as the crescent-shaped bow shock. Unlike a water wave from a ship, this interstellar bow shock is three-dimensional. The filamentary emission has a distinct boundary on the side facing away from LL Ori, but is diffuse on the side closest to the star, a trait common to many bow shocks. A second, fainter bow shock can be seen around a star near the upper right-hand corner of the image. Astronomers have identified numerous shock fronts in this complex star-forming region and are using this data to understand the complex phenomena associated with star birth. The Orion nebula is a close neighbor in our Milky Way galaxy, at only 1,500 light-years from Earth. The filters used in this color composite represent oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen emissions. |
| Date |
12.02.1999 |
|
Cold Hole Over Jupiter's Pol
…
| Title |
Cold Hole Over Jupiter's Pole |
| Description |
Observations with two NASA telescopes show that Jupiter has an arctic polar vortex similar to a vortex over Earth's Antarctica that enables depletion of Earth's stratospheric ozone. These composite images of Jupiter's north polar region from the Hubble Space Telescope (right) and the Infrared Telescope Facility (left) show a quasi-hexagonal shape that extends vertically from the stratosphere down into the top of the troposphere. A sharp temperature drop, compared to surrounding air masses, creates an eastward wind that tends to keep the polar atmosphere, including the stratospheric haze, isolated from the rest of the atmosphere. The linear striations in the composite projections are artifacts of the image processing. The area closest to the pole has been omitted because it was too close to the edge of the planet in the original images to represent the planet reliably. The composite on the right combines images from the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 of the Hubble Space Telescope taken at a wavelength of 890 nanometers, which shows stratospheric haze particles. The sharp boundary and wave-like structure of the haze layer suggest a polar vortex and a similarity to Earth's stratospheric polar clouds. Images of Jupiter's thermal radiation clinch that identification. The composite on the left, for example, is made from images taken with Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mid-Infrared Large-Well Imager at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility at a wavelength of 17 microns. It shows polar air mass that is 5 to 6 degrees Celsius (9 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit) colder than its surroundings, with the same border as the stratospheric haze. Similar observations at other infrared wavelengths show the cold air mass extends at least as high as the middle stratosphere down to the top of the troposphere. These images were taken Aug. 11 through Aug. 13, 1999, near a time when Jupiter's north pole was most visible from Earth. Other Infrared Telescope Facility images at frequencies sensitive to the polar haze were taken at frequent intervals from June to October 1999. They show that the quasi-hexagonal structure rotates slowly eastward at 1.2 degrees of longitude per day, a rate consistent with the average wind speeds measured from movement of visible clouds. Scientists studying the Earth's atmosphere are interested in these results because Jupiter's atmosphere provides a natural laboratory in which models of the polar vortex phenomenon can be studied under different conditions - for example, without the interference of topography. Of particular interest but yet unknown is how deep into Jupiter's troposphere the phenomenon extends. The answer to this question might be supplied by instrumentation on a polar orbiter mission at Jupiter. These images were taken as part of a program to support NASA's Galileo spacecraft reconnaissance of Jupiter. The Infrared Telescope Facility is on the summit of Hawaii's Mauna Kea and is operated by the University of Hawaii under a, cooperative agreement with NASA. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The telescope is managed by the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena manages JPL for NASA. |
| Date |
10.08.2002 |
|
Comet Hyakutake C/1996 B2
| Title |
Comet Hyakutake C/1996 B2 |
| Description |
These are two images of the inner coma of Comet Hyakutake made on April 3 and 4, 1996, using the NASA Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). The first one, shown in red, was taken through a narrow-band red filter that shows only sunlight scattered by dust particles in the inner coma of the comet. The second one, shown in blue was taken with an ultraviolet "Woods" filter image that shows the distribution of scattered ultraviolet radiation from hydrogen atoms in the inner coma. The coma is the head or dusty-gas atmosphere of a comet. The square field of view is 14,000 km on a side and the sun is toward the upper right corner of the image. Hydrogen atoms represent the most abundant gas in the whole coma of the comet. They are produced when solar ultraviolet light breaks up molecules of water, the major constituent of the nucleus of the comet. These images were taken as part of an observing program to study water photochemistry in comets. Measurements of hydrogen (H) and hydroxyl (OH) in the coma (or atmosphere) of Comet Hyakutake were also made using the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) and the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS). A self-consistent analysis of all the data shows that the water production rate of the comet was between 7 and 8 tons per second on the April 3 and 4. A theoretical model was used in the analysis which accounts for the detailed physics and chemistry of the photochemical destruction of the water, the production of the H and OH, and their expansion in the coma (or atmosphere) of the comet. The model matched the velocity measurements of hydrogen atoms made using the high spectral resolution capabilities of the GHRS instrument. The importance of such a detailed model is that is permits the accurate calculation of the production rate of water from observations of H and OH. The inner yellow region near the center of the red dust image is dominated by the contribution from the dust which shows sunward directed spiral jets toward the upper right, and the thin straight particle trail pointing toward the lower left. The trail was a permanent feature of the comet around the time of its close approach to the Earth in late March and early April. Also barely visible just beyond the lower left end of the trail are two of the many condensations which were seen to travel slowly down the tail are believed to be clumps of material released from the nucleus. The inner white region of the blue image appears to show that the hydrogen atoms like the dust might be preferentially ejected toward the sunward or day side of the nucleus. However, this is not true. The asymmetric ultraviolet radiation pattern is produced by a roughly spherical distribution of hydrogen atoms because they are so efficient at scattering the incoming solar ultraviolet light. The atoms on the sunward side actually shadow the atoms on the tailward or night side of the coma. The same detailed model analysis of the coma which explains the, expansion of the hydrogen atoms in the coma also explains the appearance of the image. The team was lead by Michael Combi, The University of Michigan, and included Michael Brown, California Institute of Technology, Paul Feldman, Johns Hopkins University, H. Uwe Keller of the Max Planck Institute, Lindau, Robert Meier of the Naval Research Laboratory, and William Smyth of Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. The Wide Field/Planetary Camera 2 was developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and managed by the Goddard Spaced Flight Center for NASA's Office of Space Science. This image and other images and data received from the Hubble Space Telescope are posted on the World Wide Web on the Space Telescope Science Institute home page at URL http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/ |
| Date |
03.27.1998 |
|
Rotten Egg Nebula
| Title |
Rotten Egg Nebula |
| Description |
Violent gas collisions that produced supersonic shock fronts in a dying star are seen in a new, detailed image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The picture, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, is online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc . The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Stars like our Sun will eventually die and expel most of their material outward into shells of gas and dust. These shells eventually form some of the most beautiful objects in the universe, called planetary nebulae."This new image gives us a rare view of the early death throes of stars like our Sun. For the first time, we can see phenomena leading to the formation of planetary nebulae. Until now, this had only been predicted by theory, but had never been seen directly," said Dr. Raghvendra Sahai, research scientist and member of the science team at JPL for the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The object is sometimes called the Rotten Egg Nebula, because it contains a lot of sulphur, which would produce an awful odor if one could smell in space. The object is also known as the Calabash Nebula or by the technical name OH231.8+4.2. The densest parts of the nebula are composed of material ejected recently by the central star and accelerated in opposite directions. This material, shown as yellow in the image, is zooming away at speeds up to one and a half million kilometers per hour (one million miles per hour). Most of the star's original mass is now contained in these bipolar gas structures. A team of Spanish and American astronomers used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to study how the gas stream rams into the surrounding material, shown in blue. They believe that such interactions dominate the formation process in planetary nebulae. Due to the high speed of the gas, shock-fronts are formed on impact and heat the surrounding gas. Although computer calculations have predicted the existence and structure of such shocks for some time, previous observations have not been able to prove the theory. This new Hubble image used filters that only let through light from ionized hydrogen and nitrogen atoms. Astronomers were able to distinguish the warmest parts of the gas heated by the violent shocks and found that they form a complex double-bubble shape. The bright yellow-orange colors in the picture show how dense, high-speed gas is flowing from the star, like supersonic speeding bullets ripping through a medium in opposite directions. The central star itself is hidden in the dusty band at the center. Much of the gas flow observed today seems to stem from a sudden acceleration that took place only about 800 years ago. The astronomers believe that 1,000 years from now, the Calabash Nebula will become a fully developed planetary nebula, like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. The Calabash Nebula is 1.4 light years (more than 8 trillion miles) long and located some 5,000 light years (2,900 trillion, miles) from Earth in the constellation Puppis. The image was taken in December 2000 by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The image was originally released by the Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre, with a website at http://sci.esa.int/hubble. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is online at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov . Other scientists on the team include Valentin Bujarrabal and Javier Alcolea of Observatorio Astronomico Nacional, Spain, and Carmen Sanchez Contreras of JPL. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for Hubble for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
12.02.1999 |
|
Doradus Nebula
| Title |
Doradus Nebula |
| Description |
A panoramic view of a vast, sculpted area of gas and dust where thousands of stars are being born has been captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The image, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, is online at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/21 and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc . The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The photo offers an unprecedented, detailed view of the entire inner region of the fertile, star-forming 30 Doradus Nebula. The mosaic picture shows that ultraviolet radiation and high-speed material unleashed by the stars in the cluster, called R136 (the large blue blob left of center), are weaving a tapestry of creation and destruction, triggering the collapse of looming gas and dust clouds and forming pillar-like structures that incubate newborn stars. The 30 Doradus Nebula is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way located 170,000 light-years from Earth. Nebulas like 30 Doradus are signposts of recent star birth. High-energy ultraviolet radiation from young, hot, massive stars in R136 causes surrounding gaseous material to glow. Previous Hubble telescope observations showed that R136 contains several dozen of the most massive stars known, each about 100 times the mass of the Sun and about 10 times as hot. These stellar behemoths formed about 2 million years ago. The stars in R136 produce intense "stellar winds," streams of material traveling at several million miles an hour. These winds push the gas away from the cluster and compress the inner regions of the surrounding gas and dust clouds (seen in the image as the pinkish material). The intense pressure triggers the collapse of parts of the clouds, producing a new star formation around the central cluster. Most stars in the nursery are not visible because they are still encased in cocoons of gas and dust. This mosaic image of 30 Doradus consists of five overlapping pictures taken between January 1994 and September 2000 by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Several color filters enhance important details in the stars and the nebula. Blue corresponds to the hot stars. The greenish color denotes hot gas energized by the central cluster of stars. Pink depicts the glowing edges of the gas and dust clouds facing the cluster, which are being bombarded by winds and radiation. Reddish-brown represents the cooler surfaces of the clouds, which are not receiving direct radiation from the central cluster. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov . The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for Hubble for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight, Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
12.01.1999 |
|
Edge-on Galaxy
| Title |
Edge-on Galaxy |
| Description |
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has imaged an unusual edge-on galaxy, revealing remarkable details of its warped dusty disc and showing how colliding galaxies trigger the birth of new stars. The image, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), is online at http://heritage.stsci.edu and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc. The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. During observations of the galaxy, the camera passed a milestone, taking its 100,000th image since shuttle astronauts installed it in Hubble in 1993. The dust and spiral arms of normal spiral galaxies, like our Milky Way, look flat when seen edge- on. The new image of the galaxy ESO 510-G13 shows an unusual twisted disc structure, first seen in ground-based photographs taken at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. ESO 510-G13 lies in the southern constellation Hydra, some 150 million light-years from Earth. Details of the galaxy's structure are visible because interstellar dust clouds that trace its disc are silhouetted from behind by light from the galaxy's bright, smooth central bulge. The strong warping of the disc indicates that ESO 510-G13 has recently collided with a nearby galaxy and is in the process of swallowing it. Gravitational forces distort galaxies as their stars, gas, and dust merge over millions of years. When the disturbances die out, ESO 510-G13 will be a single galaxy. The galaxy's outer regions, especially on the right side of the image, show dark dust and bright clouds of blue stars. This indicates that hot, young stars are forming in the twisted disc. Astronomers believe star formation may be triggered when galaxies collide and their interstellar clouds are compressed. The Hubble Heritage Team used WFPC2 to observe ESO 510-G13 in April 2001. Pictures obtained through blue, green, and red filters were combined to make this color-composite image, which emphasizes the contrast between the dusty spiral arms, the bright bulge, and the blue star-forming regions. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is online at http://www.stsci.edu. More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for Hubble for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
12.30.1999 |
|
Starburst Galaxy NGC 3310
| Title |
Starburst Galaxy NGC 3310 |
| Description |
Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are studying the colors of star clusters to determine the age and history of starburst galaxies, a technique somewhat similar to the process of learning the age of a tree by counting its rings. This month's Hubble Heritage image showcases the galaxy NGC 3310. It is one of several starburst galaxies, which are hotbeds of star formation, being studied by Dr. Gerhardt Meurer and a team of scientists at Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Md. The picture, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, is online at http://heritage.stsci.edu and http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/26 and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc . The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Most galaxies form new stars at a fairly slow rate, but starburst galaxies blaze with extremely active star formation. Measuring the clusters' colors yields information about stellar temperatures. Since young stars are blue and older stars redder, the colors relate to their ages. NGC 3310 is forming clusters of new stars at a prodigious rate. The new image shows several hundred star clusters, visible as the bright blue, diffuse objects that trace the galaxy's spiral arms. Each of these star clusters represents the formation of up to about a million stars, a process that takes less than 100,000 years. In addition, hundreds of individual young, luminous stars can be seen throughout the galaxy. The star clusters become redder with age as the most massive and bluest stars exhaust their fuel and burn out. Measurements in this image of the wide range of cluster colors show their ages range between about one million and more than one hundred million years. This suggests that the starburst "turned on" more than 100 million years ago. It may have been triggered when NGC 3310 collided with a companion galaxy. These observations may change astronomers' view of starbursts. Starbursts were once thought to be brief episodes, resulting from catastrophic events like a galactic collision. However, the wide range of cluster ages in NGC 3310 suggests that, once triggered, the starbursting can continue for a long time. Located in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major, NGC 3310 is about 59 million light years from Earth. The image is based on observations made by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in March 1997 and September 2000. The Hubble Heritage Team created the color rendition of the combined images. The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is available at http://hubble.stsci.edu. More, information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is available at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov |
| Date |
12.07.1999 |
|
Stephan's Quintet
| Title |
Stephan's Quintet |
| Description |
A famous group of five compact galaxies featured in the holiday film classic "It's a Wonderful Life" appears in a new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In the movie, angelic figures take on the form of the galactic group called Stephan's Quintet. But the new pictures show the group has actually been doing some devilish things. At least two of its galaxies have been involved in high-speed, hit-and-run accidents, ripping stars and gas from neighboring galaxies and tossing them into space. The image, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, is online at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/22 and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc . The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The close-up view of Stephan's Quintet reveals a string of bright star clusters sparkling like a diamond necklace. The clusters, each harboring up to millions of stars, were born from the violent interactions between some members of the group. The rude encounters also have distorted the galaxies' shapes, creating elongated spiral arms and long, gaseous streamers. The photo showcases three regions of star birth: the long, sweeping tail and spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 7319 (near center), the gaseous debris of two galaxies, NGC 7318B and NGC 7318A (top right), and the area north of those galaxies, dubbed the northern starburst region (top left). The clusters' bluish color indicates that they're relatively young -- between about 2 million to more than 1 billion years old. The brilliant star clusters in NGC 7318B's spiral arm and the northern starburst region are between 2 million and more than 100 million years old. NGC 7318B instigated the starburst by barreling through the region. The bully galaxy is just below NGC 7318A at top right. Although NGC 7318B appears dangerously close to NGC 7318A, it's traveling too fast to merge with its neighbor. The partial galaxy on the far right is NGC 7320, a foreground galaxy not physically bound to the other galaxies in the picture. About 20 to 50 of the clusters in the northern starburst region reside far from the coziness of galaxies. The clusters were born about 150,000 light-years from the nearest galaxy. Another galaxy, NGC 7320C, which is no longer part of the group and is not seen in the photo, plowed through the quintet several hundred million years ago. It pulled out the long tail of gaseous debris from NGC 7319. The clusters in NGC 7319's streaming tail are 10 million to 500 million years old and may have formed at the time of the violent collision. The faint bluish object at the tip of the tail is a young dwarf galaxy, which formed in the gaseous debris. Stephan's Quintet is in the constellation Pegasus, 270 million light-years from Earth. The pictures in this mosaic were taken by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on Dec. 30, 1998 and June 17, 1999. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is online at http://www.stsci.edu . More, information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov . The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for Hubble for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
12.02.1999 |
|
Galaxy M82
| Title |
Galaxy M82 |
| Description |
A colorful image showing violent star formation triggered when two galaxies bumped into each other has been captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In the image, the starburst galaxy M82 has a disturbed appearance caused by violent activity after an ancient encounter with its large galactic neighbor, M81. The image, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., is online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/wfpc . The huge lanes of dust that crisscross M82's disk are another telltale sign of the flurry of star formation. Below the center and to the right, a strong galactic wind is spewing knotty filaments of hydrogen and nitrogen gas. More than 100 super star clusters -- very bright, compact groupings of about 100,000 stars -- appear as white dots sprinkled throughout the galaxy's central area. The dark area just above center is a huge dust cloud. A collaboration of European and American scientists used these clusters to date the interaction between M82 and M81 to about 600 million years ago, when a region called M82 B (the bright area just below and to the left of the central dust cloud) exploded with new stars. Scientists have found that this ancient starburst was triggered by the encounter with M81. The results are published in the February 2001 issue of the Astronomical Journal. This discovery provides evidence linking the birth of super star clusters to violent interaction between galaxies. These clusters also provide insight into the rough-and-tumble universe of long ago, when galaxies bumped into each other more frequently. M82 is located 12 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. The picture was taken Sept. 15, 1997. The natural-color composite was constructed from three exposures taken with blue, green and red filters. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md., manages space operations for the Hubble Space Telescope for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., for NASA under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is available at http://www.stsci.edu . More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is available at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov. |
| Date |
12.02.1999 |
|
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![At the Edge of the Helix Credit: R. O'Dell and K. Handron (Rice University [ http://spacsun.rice.edu/ ]), NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/ ]](http://mm04.nasaimages.org/MediaManager/srvr?mediafile=/Size1/NVA2-4-NA/8315/helixF_hst_big.jpg&userid=1&username=admin&resolution=1&servertype=JVA&cid=4&iid=NVA2&vcid=NA&usergroup=NASA_Astronomy_Picture_of_the_Day_Collecti-4-Admin&profileid=16)
