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Stellar Destruction
Evidence from NASA's Chandra
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01/05/10
| Description |
Evidence from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Magellan telescopes suggest a star was torn apart by an intermediate-mass black hole in a globular cluster. In this image, X-rays from Chandra are shown in blue and are overlaid on an optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The Chandra observations show that this object is a so-called ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX). An unusual class of objects, ULXs emit more X-rays than stars, but less than quasars. Their exact nature has remained a mystery, but one suggestion is that some ULXs are black holes with masses between about a hundred and a thousands times that of the Sun. Data optical light obtained with the Magellan I and II telescopes in Las Campanas, Chile, also provides intriguing information about this object, which is found in the elliptical galaxy NGC 1399 in the Fornax cluster. The spectrum reveals emission from oxygen and nitrogen but no hydrogen, a rare set of signals from within globular clusters. The combination of this unusual X-ray and optical emission makes this a remarkable object. This leads the researchers to suspect that a white dwarf star strayed too close to the intermediate-mass black hole and was ripped apart by tidal forces. Another interesting aspect to this object is that it is found within a globular cluster, a very old, very tight grouping of stars. Astronomers have long suspected globular clusters contained intermediate-mass black holes, but there has been no conclusive evidence of their existence there to date. If confirmed, this finding would represent the first such substantiation. Image Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UA/J. Irwin et al. Optical: NASA/STScI |
| Date |
01/05/10 |
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Big Galaxy in Baby Universe
| Title |
Big Galaxy in Baby Universe |
| Description |
NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes combined forces to uncover one of the most distant galaxies ever seen. The faraway galaxy, named HUDF-JD2 (in green circles) is not seen in Hubble's visible-light image (upper right), but was detected using Hubble's near infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer (lower left). It appears even brighter at the longer infrared wavelengths, as revealed by the Spitzer infrared camera (lower right). At visible wavelengths, the light from the galaxy is absorbed by intervening hydrogen gas, and so the galaxy appears faint in the Hubble visible and near-infrared images. The surprise is how bright is appears to Spitzer in the infrared, suggesting a very massive and distant galaxy. |
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Big Galaxy in Baby Universe
| Title |
Big Galaxy in Baby Universe |
| Description |
NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes combined forces to uncover one of the most distant galaxies ever seen. The faraway galaxy, named HUDF-JD2 (in green circles) is not seen in Hubble's visible-light image (upper right), but was detected using Hubble's near infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer (lower left). It appears even brighter at the longer infrared wavelengths, as revealed by the Spitzer infrared camera (lower right). At visible wavelengths, the light from the galaxy is absorbed by intervening hydrogen gas, and so the galaxy appears faint in the Hubble visible and near-infrared images. The surprise is how bright is appears to Spitzer in the infrared, suggesting a very massive and distant galaxy. |
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Spitzer and Hubble Team Up T
…
| Title |
Spitzer and Hubble Team Up To Find 'Big Baby' Galaxies in the Newborn Universe |
| Description |
This image demonstrates how data from two of NASA's Great Observatories, the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes, are used to identify one of the most distant galaxies ever seen. This galaxy is unusually massive for its youthful age of 800 million years. (After the Big Bang, the Milky Way by comparison, is approximately 13 billion years old.) [Left] - The galaxy, named HUDF-JD2, was pinpointed among approximately 10,000 others in a small area of sky called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. This is the deepest images of the universe ever made at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. [Upper Right] - A blow-up of one small area of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field is used to identify where the distant galaxy is located (inside green circle). This indicates that the galaxy's visible light has been absorbed by traveling billions of light-years through intervening hydrogen. [Center Right] - The galaxy was detected using Hubble's near infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer. But at near-infrared wavelengths it is very faint and red. [Bottom Right] - The Spitzer infrared array camera, easily detects the galaxy at longer infrared wavelengths. The instrument is sensitive to the light from older, redder stars which should make up most of the mass in a galaxy. The brightness of the infrared galaxy suggests that it is quite massive. |
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Spitzer and Hubble Team Up T
…
| Title |
Spitzer and Hubble Team Up To Find 'Big Baby' Galaxies in the Newborn Universe |
| Description |
This image demonstrates how data from two of NASA's Great Observatories, the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes, are used to identify one of the most distant galaxies ever seen. This galaxy is unusually massive for its youthful age of 800 million years. (After the Big Bang, the Milky Way by comparison, is approximately 13 billion years old.) [Left] - The galaxy, named HUDF-JD2, was pinpointed among approximately 10,000 others in a small area of sky called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. This is the deepest images of the universe ever made at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. [Upper Right] - A blow-up of one small area of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field is used to identify where the distant galaxy is located (inside green circle). This indicates that the galaxy's visible light has been absorbed by traveling billions of light-years through intervening hydrogen. [Center Right] - The galaxy was detected using Hubble's near infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer. But at near-infrared wavelengths it is very faint and red. [Bottom Right] - The Spitzer infrared array camera, easily detects the galaxy at longer infrared wavelengths. The instrument is sensitive to the light from older, redder stars which should make up most of the mass in a galaxy. The brightness of the infrared galaxy suggests that it is quite massive. |
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Spitzer and Hubble Team Up T
…
| Title |
Spitzer and Hubble Team Up To Find 'Big Baby' Galaxies in the Newborn Universe |
| Description |
This image demonstrates how data from two of NASA's Great Observatories, the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes, are used to identify one of the most distant galaxies ever seen. This galaxy is unusually massive for its youthful age of 800 million years. (After the Big Bang, the Milky Way by comparison, is approximately 13 billion years old.) [Left] - The galaxy, named HUDF-JD2, was pinpointed among approximately 10,000 others in a small area of sky called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. This is the deepest images of the universe ever made at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. [Upper Right] - A blow-up of one small area of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field is used to identify where the distant galaxy is located (inside green circle). This indicates that the galaxy's visible light has been absorbed by traveling billions of light-years through intervening hydrogen. [Center Right] - The galaxy was detected using Hubble's near infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer. But at near-infrared wavelengths it is very faint and red. [Bottom Right] - The Spitzer infrared array camera, easily detects the galaxy at longer infrared wavelengths. The instrument is sensitive to the light from older, redder stars which should make up most of the mass in a galaxy. The brightness of the infrared galaxy suggests that it is quite massive. |
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Spitzer and Hubble Team Up T
…
| Title |
Spitzer and Hubble Team Up To Find 'Big Baby' Galaxies in the Newborn Universe |
| Description |
This image demonstrates how data from two of NASA's Great Observatories, the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes, are used to identify one of the most distant galaxies ever seen. This galaxy is unusually massive for its youthful age of 800 million years. (After the Big Bang, the Milky Way by comparison, is approximately 13 billion years old.) [Left] - The galaxy, named HUDF-JD2, was pinpointed among approximately 10,000 others in a small area of sky called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. This is the deepest images of the universe ever made at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. [Upper Right] - A blow-up of one small area of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field is used to identify where the distant galaxy is located (inside green circle). This indicates that the galaxy's visible light has been absorbed by traveling billions of light-years through intervening hydrogen. [Center Right] - The galaxy was detected using Hubble's near infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer. But at near-infrared wavelengths it is very faint and red. [Bottom Right] - The Spitzer infrared array camera, easily detects the galaxy at longer infrared wavelengths. The instrument is sensitive to the light from older, redder stars which should make up most of the mass in a galaxy. The brightness of the infrared galaxy suggests that it is quite massive. |
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Spitzer and Hubble Team Up T
…
| Title |
Spitzer and Hubble Team Up To Find 'Big Baby' Galaxies in the Newborn Universe |
| Description |
This image demonstrates how data from two of NASA's Great Observatories, the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes, are used to identify one of the most distant galaxies ever seen. This galaxy is unusually massive for its youthful age of 800 million years. (After the Big Bang, the Milky Way by comparison, is approximately 13 billion years old.) [Left] - The galaxy, named HUDF-JD2, was pinpointed among approximately 10,000 others in a small area of sky called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. This is the deepest images of the universe ever made at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. [Upper Right] - A blow-up of one small area of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field is used to identify where the distant galaxy is located (inside green circle). This indicates that the galaxy's visible light has been absorbed by traveling billions of light-years through intervening hydrogen. [Center Right] - The galaxy was detected using Hubble's near infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer. But at near-infrared wavelengths it is very faint and red. [Bottom Right] - The Spitzer infrared array camera, easily detects the galaxy at longer infrared wavelengths. The instrument is sensitive to the light from older, redder stars which should make up most of the mass in a galaxy. The brightness of the infrared galaxy suggests that it is quite massive. |
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Hubble Ultra Deep Field
| Title |
Hubble Ultra Deep Field |
| Description |
In this image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, several objects are identified as the faintest, most compact galaxies ever observed in the distant universe. They are so far away that we see them as they looked less than one billion years after the Big Bang. Blazing with the brilliance of millions of stars, each of the newly discovered galaxies is a hundred to a thousand times smaller than our Milky Way Galaxy. The detection required joint observations between Hubble and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Blue light seen by Hubble shows the presence of young stars. The absence of infrared light from Spitzer observations conclusively shows that these are truly young galaxies without an earlier generation of stars. |
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Missing Black Holes Found!
| Title |
Missing Black Holes Found! |
| Description |
A long-lost population of active supermassive black holes, or quasars, has been uncovered by NASA's Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes. This image, taken with Spitzer's infrared vision, shows a fraction of these black holes, which are located deep in the bellies of distant, massive galaxies (circled in blue). Spitzer originally scanned the field of galaxies shown in the picture as part of a multiwavelength program called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, or Goods. This picture shows a portion of the Goods field called Goods-South. When astronomers saw the Spitzer data, they were surprised to find that hundreds of the galaxies between 9 and 11 billion light-years away were shining with an unexpected excess of infrared light. They then followed up with X-ray data from Chandra of the same field, and applied a technique called stacking, which adds up the faint light of multiple galaxies. The results revealed that the infrared-bright galaxies are hiding many black holes that had been theorized about before but never seen. This excess infrared light is being produced by the growing black holes. The other smudges in this picture are distant galaxies, most of which are closer to us than the circled galaxies, causing them to appear brighter. This image was taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer at a wavelength of 24 microns. It shows the faintest distant objects ever observed with Spitzer at this wavelength. |
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Missing Black Holes Found!
| Title |
Missing Black Holes Found! |
| Description |
A long-lost population of active supermassive black holes, or quasars, has been uncovered by NASA's Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes. This image, taken with Spitzer's infrared vision, shows a fraction of these black holes, which are located deep in the bellies of distant, massive galaxies (circled in blue). Spitzer originally scanned the field of galaxies shown in the picture as part of a multiwavelength program called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, or Goods. This picture shows a portion of the Goods field called Goods-South. When astronomers saw the Spitzer data, they were surprised to find that hundreds of the galaxies between 9 and 11 billion light-years away were shining with an unexpected excess of infrared light. They then followed up with X-ray data from Chandra of the same field, and applied a technique called stacking, which adds up the faint light of multiple galaxies. The results revealed that the infrared-bright galaxies are hiding many black holes that had been theorized about before but never seen. This excess infrared light is being produced by the growing black holes. The other smudges in this picture are distant galaxies, most of which are closer to us than the circled galaxies, causing them to appear brighter. This image was taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer at a wavelength of 24 microns. It shows the faintest distant objects ever observed with Spitzer at this wavelength. |
|
Missing Black Holes Found!
| Title |
Missing Black Holes Found! |
| Description |
A long-lost population of active supermassive black holes, or quasars, has been uncovered by NASA's Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes. This image, taken with Spitzer's infrared vision, shows a fraction of these black holes, which are located deep in the bellies of distant, massive galaxies (circled in blue). Spitzer originally scanned the field of galaxies shown in the picture as part of a multiwavelength program called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, or Goods. This picture shows a portion of the Goods field called Goods-South. When astronomers saw the Spitzer data, they were surprised to find that hundreds of the galaxies between 9 and 11 billion light-years away were shining with an unexpected excess of infrared light. They then followed up with X-ray data from Chandra of the same field, and applied a technique called stacking, which adds up the faint light of multiple galaxies. The results revealed that the infrared-bright galaxies are hiding many black holes that had been theorized about before but never seen. This excess infrared light is being produced by the growing black holes. The other smudges in this picture are distant galaxies, most of which are closer to us than the circled galaxies, causing them to appear brighter. This image was taken by Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer at a wavelength of 24 microns. It shows the faintest distant objects ever observed with Spitzer at this wavelength. |
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10,000 Galaxies
| title |
10,000 Galaxies |
| date |
01.16.2004 |
| description |
Galaxies, galaxies everywhere - as far as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope can see. This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is the deepest visible-light image of the cosmos. Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this galaxy-studded view represents a "deep" core sample of the universe, cutting across billions of light-years. The snapshot includes galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colors. The smallest, reddest galaxies, about 100, may be among the most distant known, existing when the universe was just 800 million years old. The nearest galaxies - the larger, brighter, well-defined spirals and ellipticals - thrived about 1 billion years ago, when the cosmos was 13 billion years old. In vibrant contrast to the rich harvest of classic spiral and elliptical galaxies, there is a zoo of oddball galaxies littering the field. Some look like toothpicks, others like links on a bracelet. A few appear to be interacting. These oddball galaxies chronicle a period when the universe was younger and more chaotic. Order and structure were just beginning to emerge. The Ultra Deep Field observations, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys, represent a narrow, deep view of the cosmos. Peering into the Ultra Deep Field is like looking through an eight-foot-long soda straw. In ground-based photographs, the patch of sky in which the galaxies reside (just one-tenth the diameter of the full Moon) is largely empty. Located in the constellation Fornax, the region is so empty that only a handful of stars within the Milky Way galaxy can be seen in the image. In this image, blue and green correspond to colors that can be seen by the human eye, such as hot, young, blue stars and the glow of Sun-like stars in the disks of galaxies. Red represents near-infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye, such as the red glow of dust-enshrouded galaxies. The image required 800 exposures taken over the course of 400 Hubble orbits around Earth. The total amount of exposure time was 11.3 days, taken between Sept. 24, 2003 and Jan. 16, 2004. *Image Credit*: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team |
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Illustration of Fornax Clust
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| Name |
Illustration of Fornax Cluster |
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Chandra X-ray Image of Forna
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| Name |
Chandra X-ray Image of Fornax Cluster, Labeled |
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Chandra X-ray Image with Sca
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| Name |
Chandra X-ray Image with Scale Bar |
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Brown Dwarf LP 944-20: The M
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| Name |
Brown Dwarf LP 944-20: The Mouse That Roared - Chandra Captures Flare From Brown Dwarf |
| Category |
Brown Dwarf |
| Release Date |
July 11, 2000 |
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Dissolve from Optical to X-r
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| Name |
Dissolve from Optical to X-ray View of Fornax |
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Chandra Deep Field-South:
| Name |
Chandra Deep Field-South: |
| Category |
Cosmology/Deep Fields/X-ray Background, Black Holes |
| Release Date |
March 13, 2001 |
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Iron Spectra from Supermassi
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| Name |
Iron Spectra from Supermassive Black Holes: Chandra Measures Iron in the Fire |
| Category |
Cosmology/Deep Fields/X-ray Background, Black Holes |
| Release Date |
May 23, 2005 |
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GOODS Chandra Deep Field Sou
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| Name |
GOODS Chandra Deep Field South: GOODS Missing Black Hole Report: Hundreds Found! |
| Category |
Cosmology/Deep Fields/X-ray Background, Black Holes, Quasars & Active Galaxies |
| Release Date |
October 25, 2007 |
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Hubble Space Telescope on Tr
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| Title |
Hubble Space Telescope on Track for Measuring the Expansion Rate of the Universe |
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Hubble's Ultraviolet Views o
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| Title |
Hubble's Ultraviolet Views of Nearby Galaxies Yield Clues to Early Universe |
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Hubble Finds More Evidence o
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| Title |
Hubble Finds More Evidence of Galactic Cannibalism |
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Hubble's Ultraviolet Views o
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| Title |
Hubble's Ultraviolet Views of Nearby Galaxies Yield Clues to Early Universe |
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Hubble's Ultraviolet Views o
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| Title |
Hubble's Ultraviolet Views of Nearby Galaxies Yield Clues to Early Universe |
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Hubble's Ultraviolet Views o
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| Title |
Hubble's Ultraviolet Views of Nearby Galaxies Yield Clues to Early Universe |
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The Secret Lives of Galaxies
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| Title |
The Secret Lives of Galaxies Unveiled in Deep Survey |
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The Secret Lives of Galaxies
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| Title |
The Secret Lives of Galaxies Unveiled in Deep Survey |
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The Secret Lives of Galaxies
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| Title |
The Secret Lives of Galaxies Unveiled in Deep Survey |
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The Secret Lives of Galaxies
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| Title |
The Secret Lives of Galaxies Unveiled in Deep Survey |
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The Secret Lives of Galaxies
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| Title |
The Secret Lives of Galaxies Unveiled in Deep Survey |
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The Secret Lives of Galaxies
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| Title |
The Secret Lives of Galaxies Unveiled in Deep Survey |
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Hubble's Deepest View Ever o
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| Title |
Hubble's Deepest View Ever of the Universe Unveils Earliest Galaxies |
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The Secret Lives of Galaxies
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| Title |
The Secret Lives of Galaxies Unveiled in Deep Survey |
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Hubble's Deepest View Ever o
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| Title |
Hubble's Deepest View Ever of the Universe Unveils Earliest Galaxies |
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The Secret Lives of Galaxies
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| Title |
The Secret Lives of Galaxies Unveiled in Deep Survey |
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Hubble's Deepest View Ever o
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| Title |
Hubble's Deepest View Ever of the Universe Unveils Earliest Galaxies |
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Hubble's Deepest View Ever o
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| Title |
Hubble's Deepest View Ever of the Universe Unveils Earliest Galaxies |
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Hubble's Deepest View Ever o
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| Title |
Hubble's Deepest View Ever of the Universe Unveils Earliest Galaxies |
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The Secret Lives of Galaxies
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| Title |
The Secret Lives of Galaxies Unveiled in Deep Survey |
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Hubble's Deepest View Ever o
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| Title |
Hubble's Deepest View Ever of the Universe Unveils Earliest Galaxies |
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Hubble's Deepest View Ever o
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| Title |
Hubble's Deepest View Ever of the Universe Unveils Earliest Galaxies |
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Hubble's Deepest View Ever o
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| Title |
Hubble's Deepest View Ever of the Universe Unveils Earliest Galaxies |
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The Secret Lives of Galaxies
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| Title |
The Secret Lives of Galaxies Unveiled in Deep Survey |
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The Secret Lives of Galaxies
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| Title |
The Secret Lives of Galaxies Unveiled in Deep Survey |
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The Secret Lives of Galaxies
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| Title |
The Secret Lives of Galaxies Unveiled in Deep Survey |
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Spitzer and Hubble Team Up t
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| Title |
Spitzer and Hubble Team Up to Find "Big Baby" Galaxies in the Newborn Universe |
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Spitzer and Hubble Team Up t
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| Title |
Spitzer and Hubble Team Up to Find "Big Baby" Galaxies in the Newborn Universe |
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Spitzer and Hubble Team Up t
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| Title |
Spitzer and Hubble Team Up to Find "Big Baby" Galaxies in the Newborn Universe |
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