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Hubble Space Telescope (HST) of Hamilton and Washington, D.C.
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The Mark of a Dying Star
| Title |
The Mark of a Dying Star |
| Description |
Six hundred and fifty light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, a dead star about the size of Earth, is refusing to fade away peacefully. In death, it is spewing out massive amounts of hot gas and intense ultraviolet radiation, creating a spectacular object called a "planetary nebula." In this false-color image, NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes have teamed up to capture the complex structure of the object, called the Helix nebula, in unprecedented detail. The composite picture is made up of visible data from Hubble and infrared data from Spitzer. The dead star, called a white dwarf, can be seen at the center of the image as a white dot. All of the colorful gaseous material seen in the image was once part of the central star, but was lost in the death throes of the star on its way to becoming a white dwarf. The intense ultraviolet radiation being released by the white dwarf is heating and destabilizing the molecules in its surrounding environment, starting from the inside out. Like an electric stovetop slowly heating up from the center first, the hottest and most unstable gas molecules can be seen at the center of the nebula as wisps of blue. The transition to more stable and cooler molecules is clearly depicted as the color of the gas changes from very hot (blue) to hot (yellow) and warm (red). A striking feature of the Helix, first revealed by ground-based images, is its collection of thousands of filamentary structures, or strands of gas. In this image the filaments can be seen under the transparent blue gas as red lines radiating out from the center. Astronomers believe that the molecules in these filaments are able to stay cooler and more stable because dense clumps of materials are shielding them from ultraviolet radiation. This image is a composite showing ionized H-alpha (green) and O III (blue) gases from the Hubble Space Telescope, and molecular hydrogen (red) from Spitzer observations at 4.5 and 8.0 microns. |
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The Mark of a Dying Star
| Title |
The Mark of a Dying Star |
| Description |
Six hundred and fifty light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, a dead star about the size of Earth, is refusing to fade away peacefully. In death, it is spewing out massive amounts of hot gas and intense ultraviolet radiation, creating a spectacular object called a "planetary nebula." In this false-color image, NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes have teamed up to capture the complex structure of the object, called the Helix nebula, in unprecedented detail. The composite picture is made up of visible data from Hubble and infrared data from Spitzer. The dead star, called a white dwarf, can be seen at the center of the image as a white dot. All of the colorful gaseous material seen in the image was once part of the central star, but was lost in the death throes of the star on its way to becoming a white dwarf. The intense ultraviolet radiation being released by the white dwarf is heating and destabilizing the molecules in its surrounding environment, starting from the inside out. Like an electric stovetop slowly heating up from the center first, the hottest and most unstable gas molecules can be seen at the center of the nebula as wisps of blue. The transition to more stable and cooler molecules is clearly depicted as the color of the gas changes from very hot (blue) to hot (yellow) and warm (red). A striking feature of the Helix, first revealed by ground-based images, is its collection of thousands of filamentary structures, or strands of gas. In this image the filaments can be seen under the transparent blue gas as red lines radiating out from the center. Astronomers believe that the molecules in these filaments are able to stay cooler and more stable because dense clumps of materials are shielding them from ultraviolet radiation. This image is a composite showing ionized H-alpha (green) and O III (blue) gases from the Hubble Space Telescope, and molecular hydrogen (red) from Spitzer observations at 4.5 and 8.0 microns. |
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Looking Down a Barrel of Gas
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| Title |
Looking Down a Barrel of Gas at a Doomed Star |
| General Information |
What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Astronomers using the Hubble telescope have obtained the sharpest view yet of a glowing loop of gas called the Ring Nebula (M57), first cataloged more than 200 years ago by French astronomer Charles Messier. The pictures reveal that the "Ring" is actually a cylinder of gas seen almost end-on. Such elongated shapes are common among other planetary nebulae, because thick disks of gas and dust form a waist around a dying star. This "waist" slows down the expansion of material ejected by the doomed object. The easiest escape route for this cast-off material is above and below the star. This photo reveals dark, elongated clumps of material embedded in the gas at the edge of the nebula, the dying central star is floating in a blue haze of hot gas. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1999/01/text/ ] |
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Light and Shadow in the Cari
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| Title |
Light and Shadow in the Carina 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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Internet Voters Get Two Gala
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| Title |
Internet Voters Get Two Galaxies in One from Hubble |
| General Information |
What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Located about 130 million light-years away, NGC 4650A is one of only 100 known polar-ring galaxies. Their unusual disk-ring structure is not yet understood fully. One possibility is that polar rings are the remnants of colossal collisions between two galaxies sometime in the distant past, probably at least 1 billion years ago. What is left of one galaxy has become the rotating inner disk of old red stars in the center. Meanwhile, another smaller galaxy, which ventured too close, was probably severely damaged or destroyed. During the collision the gas from the smaller galaxy would have been stripped off and captured by the larger galaxy, forming a new ring of dust, gas, and stars, which orbit around the inner galaxy almost at right angles to the old disk. This is the polar ring that we see almost edge-on in this Hubble telescope view. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1999/16/text/ ] |
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Magnificent Details in a Dus
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| Title |
Magnificent Details in a Dusty Spiral Galaxy |
| General Information |
What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. The Key Project team used this Hubble telescope view of the magnificent spiral galaxy, NGC 4414, to help calculate the expansion rate of the universe. Based on their discovery and careful brightness measurements of variable stars in this galaxy, the Key Project astronomers were able to make an accurate determination of the distance to the galaxy. The resulting distance to NGC 4414, about 60 million light-years, along with similarly determined distances to other nearby galaxies, contributes to astronomers' overall knowledge of the expansion rate of the cosmos, and helps them determine the age of the universe. |
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A Minuet of Galaxies
| Title |
A Minuet of Galaxies |
| General Information |
What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. This troupe of four galaxies, known as Hickson Compact Group 87 (HCG 87), is performing an intricate dance orchestrated by the mutual gravitational forces acting between them. The dance is a slow, graceful minuet, occurring over a time span of hundreds of millions of years. This Hubble telescope image reveals complex details in the dust lanes of the group's largest galaxy member (HCG 87a), which is actually disk-shaped, but tilted so that we see it nearly edge-on. Both 87a and its elliptically shaped nearest neighbor (87b) have active galactic nuclei, which are believed to harbor black holes that are consuming gas. A third group member, the nearby spiral galaxy 87c, may be undergoing a burst of active star formation. The three galaxies are so close to each other that gravitational forces disrupt their structure and alter their evolution. |
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Hubble Reveals Ultraviolet G
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| Title |
Hubble Reveals Ultraviolet Galactic Ring |
| 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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Hubble Takes a Close-up View
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| Title |
Hubble Takes a Close-up View of a Reflection Nebula in Orion |
| 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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By Popular Demand: Hubble Ob
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| Title |
By Popular Demand: Hubble Observes the Horsehead 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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Odd Couple Widely Separated
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| Title |
Odd Couple Widely Separated by Time and Space |
| 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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Odd Couple Widely Separated
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| Title |
Odd Couple Widely Separated by Time and Space |
| 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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Odd Couple Widely Separated
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| Title |
Odd Couple Widely Separated by Time and Space |
| 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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A Wheel within a Wheel
| Title |
A Wheel within a Wheel |
| 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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Hubble Astronomers Feast on
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| Title |
Hubble Astronomers Feast on an Interstellar Hamburger |
| 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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Odd Couple Widely Separated
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| Title |
Odd Couple Widely Separated by Time and Space |
| 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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An Old Star Gives Up the Gho
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| Title |
An Old Star Gives Up the Ghost |
| 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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Hubble Photographs 'Double B
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| Title |
Hubble Photographs 'Double Bubble' in Neighboring Galaxy |
| 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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Iridescent Glory of Nearby P
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| Title |
Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day |
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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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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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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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Too Close for Comfort
| Title |
Too Close for Comfort |
| 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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Too Close for Comfort
| Title |
Too Close for Comfort |
| 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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Celestial Composition
| Title |
Celestial Composition |
| 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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Celestial Composition
| Title |
Celestial Composition |
| 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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Iridescent Glory of Nearby P
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| Title |
Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day |
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Iridescent Glory of Nearby P
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| Title |
Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day |
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Iridescent Glory of Nearby P
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| Title |
Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day |
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Iridescent Glory of Nearby P
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| Title |
Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day |
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Iridescent Glory of Nearby P
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| Title |
Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day |
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Iridescent Glory of Nearby P
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| Title |
Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day |
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Iridescent Glory of Nearby P
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| Title |
Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day |
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Iridescent Glory of Nearby P
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| Title |
Iridescent Glory of Nearby Planetary Nebula Showcased on Astronomy Day |
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Celestial Composition
| Title |
Celestial Composition |
| 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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Supernova Shock Wave Paints
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| Title |
Supernova Shock Wave Paints Cosmic Portrait |
| 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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Celestial Composition
| Title |
Celestial Composition |
| 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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Celestial Composition
| Title |
Celestial Composition |
| 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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Celestial Composition
| Title |
Celestial Composition |
| 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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Supernova Shock Wave Paints
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| Title |
Supernova Shock Wave Paints Cosmic Portrait |
| 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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Celestial Composition
| Title |
Celestial Composition |
| 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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Celestial Composition
| Title |
Celestial Composition |
| 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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Supernova Shock Wave Paints
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| Title |
Supernova Shock Wave Paints Cosmic Portrait |
| 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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Celestial Composition
| Title |
Celestial Composition |
| 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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Supernova Shock Wave Paints
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| Title |
Supernova Shock Wave Paints Cosmic Portrait |
| 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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Celestial Composition
| Title |
Celestial Composition |
| 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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Light Continues to Echo Thre
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| Title |
Light Continues to Echo Three Years After Stellar Outburst |
| 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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Light Continues to Echo Thre
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| Title |
Light Continues to Echo Three Years After Stellar Outburst |
| 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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Celestial Composition
| Title |
Celestial Composition |
| 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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Heritage Project Celebrates
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| Title |
Heritage Project Celebrates Five Years of Harvesting the Best Images from Hubble Space Telescope |
| 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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