Narrow Search
 
 
Advanced Search

Browse All : Sun of Hawaii

Printer Friendly
1 2 3 4 5
1-50 of 222
     
     
Highest resolution of lava f …
Lava flows similar to those …
4/19/00
Date 4/19/00
Description Lava flows similar to those found in Hawaii are seen in the black and white image at top, taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. It is one of the highest resolution images (7 meters or 23 feet per picture element) ever obtained of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io. The two horizontal black stripes are places where data were lost during transmission to Earth. The image shows the textures of lava flows on the floor of the caldera Chaac, which is shown in false color at lower resolution (185 meters or 607 feet per pixel element) in the bottom image. Calderas are depressions caused by collapse during volcanic eruptions. The one shown here is approximately 100 kilometers (63 miles) long and 30 kilometers (19 miles) across. Using shadow lengths from the new high-resolution observations, the northeastern (upper right) scarp, or line of cliffs, has been estimated to be 2.8 kilometers (9200 feet) high. The lava flows are similar in texture to lava flows within the caldera at Hawaii's Kilauea volcano. This suggests that the floor of Chaac has been covered by a combination of lava flows and lava lakes. The light-colored material surrounding the caldera may be composed of sulfur-dioxide frost or some other sulfur-rich material on the surface of Io. Galileo scientists believe that the greenish color on the caldera floor is a form of contaminated sulfur created when sulfur-rich material escaping from volcanic vents reacts chemically with warm lava flows. The high- resolution view shows numerous lava flows. The darkest flows are thought to be the most recent because they have not been covered by the sulfurous materials which coat most of Io's surface. The top image was acquired by Galileo on February 22, 2000. It was taken at a distance of 600 kilometers (370 miles) and is centered at 11.9 degrees north latitude and 157.6 degrees west longitude. North is to the top, and the Sun illuminates the surface from the right. The color image was created by combining a black and white image taken on February 22, 2000 at a distance of 18,800 kilometers (11,700 miles) from Io with lower-resolution (1.3 kilometers or 0.81 miles per picture element) color images taken on July 3, 1999 at a distance of 130,000 kilometers (81,000 miles). The image is centered at 11.6 degrees north latitude and 157.7 degrees west longitude. North is to the top and the Sun illuminates the surface from the left. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo mission home page at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov . Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/images/io/ioimages.html . #####
An Ionian Caldera Up Close
Detail of one of the caldera …
5/31/00
Date 5/31/00
Description Detail of one of the calderas, or collapsed volcanic craters, on Jupiter's moon Io, is seen in these images acquired on February 22, 2000 by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Taken from a distance of 700 to 800 kilometers (roughly 400 to 500 miles). The five partial images on the right comprise all of the data that could be returned from an eight-image mosaic. These are the highest resolution images of lava flows ever obtained from Io. The resolution of the close-up images varies from 7 to 8 meters (about 23 to 26 feet) per picture element. The boxes in the image to the left are approximate locations of the five partial images. They are shown superimposed on a lower resolution image of the entire Chaac caldera. The high-resolution snapshots highlight areas from both the southern and northern rims as well as areas on the floor of the caldera. They reveal fascinating similarities and differences between calderas on Io and Earth. Most puzzling is the texture of the material above the caldera rim. The plains surrounding Chaac are covered with alternating dark and light patches. The process that forms this surface is a complete mystery. By comparison, scientists analyzing the images say the floor of the caldera is amazingly familiar. The interwoven domes and pits form a surface essentially identical to many terrestrial calderas that erupt fluid lavas. For example, the similarity to the caldera on top of the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii is striking. The southernmost Chaac image shows several raised plateaus and a deep, dark pit about 400 meters (about 440 yards) across. Although the Kilauea caldera is 10 times smaller than the Chaac caldera, the 1959 Kilauea eruption formed similar features to Chaac when a small volcanic crater was filled by erupting lava. The Hawaiian lava formed a pond that crusted over and then partially drained back down into the ground. Pieces of the pond crust that were left behind formed a perched plateau, and the hole the lava drained back into formed a deep pit. Scientists presume the same thing happened at Chaac in the recent past. The high-resolution images were taken at a distance of about 700- 800 kilometers (400-500 miles) and are centered around 12 degrees north latitude and 158 degrees west longitude. North is to the top and the sun illuminates the surface from the right. The lower resolution image was also taken on February 22, 2000 but from a distance of 18,800 kilometers (11,700 miles) from Io. The image is centered at 11.6 degrees north latitude and 157.7 degrees west longitude. North is to the top and the Sun illuminates the surface from the left. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov . Background information and educational context for the images can be found at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/images/io/ioimages.html . #####
A More Spectacular Sombrero …
Title A More Spectacular Sombrero (Widescreen Version)
Description This movie shifts from the well-known visible-light picture of Messier 104 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope to infrared views from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." Viewed from Earth, the spiral galaxy is seen nearly edge-on, just six degrees away from its equatorial plane. 50,000 light-years across, the Sombrero galaxy is considered one of the most massive objects at the southern edge of the Virgo cluster of galaxies. It is located 28 million light-years away, hosts a rich system of nearly 2,000 globular clusters and may harbor a super-massive black hole. In Hubble's visible light image, only the near rim of dust can be clearly seen in silhouette. Recent observations using Spitzer's infrared array camera uncovered the bright, smooth ring of dust circling the galaxy, seen in red. Spitzer's infrared view of the starlight, pierced through the obscuring dust, is easily seen, along with the bulge of stars and an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image. This magnificent galaxy has a diameter that is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full Moon.
Spitzer Spies Spectacular So …
Title Spitzer Spies Spectacular Sombrero
Description NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes joined forces to create this striking composite image of one of the most popular sights in the universe. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." In Hubble's visible light image (lower left panel), only the near rim of dust can be clearly seen in silhouette. Recent observations using Spitzer's infrared array camera (lower right panel) uncovered the bright, smooth ring of dust circling the galaxy, seen in red. Spitzer's infrared view of the starlight, piercing through the obscuring dust, is easily seen, along with the bulge of stars and an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image. This magnificent galaxy has a diameter that is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full Moon.
Spitzer Spies Spectacular So …
Title Spitzer Spies Spectacular Sombrero
Description NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes joined forces to create this striking composite image of one of the most popular sights in the universe. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." In Hubble's visible light image (lower left panel), only the near rim of dust can be clearly seen in silhouette. Recent observations using Spitzer's infrared array camera (lower right panel) uncovered the bright, smooth ring of dust circling the galaxy, seen in red. Spitzer's infrared view of the starlight, piercing through the obscuring dust, is easily seen, along with the bulge of stars and an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image. This magnificent galaxy has a diameter that is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full Moon.
Spitzer Spies Spectacular So …
Title Spitzer Spies Spectacular Sombrero
Description NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes joined forces to create this striking composite image of one of the most popular sights in the universe. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." In Hubble's visible light image (lower left panel), only the near rim of dust can be clearly seen in silhouette. Recent observations using Spitzer's infrared array camera (lower right panel) uncovered the bright, smooth ring of dust circling the galaxy, seen in red. Spitzer's infrared view of the starlight, piercing through the obscuring dust, is easily seen, along with the bulge of stars and an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image. This magnificent galaxy has a diameter that is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full Moon.
Spitzer Spies Spectacular So …
Title Spitzer Spies Spectacular Sombrero
Description NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes joined forces to create this striking composite image of one of the most popular sights in the universe. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." In Hubble's visible light image (lower left panel), only the near rim of dust can be clearly seen in silhouette. Recent observations using Spitzer's infrared array camera (lower right panel) uncovered the bright, smooth ring of dust circling the galaxy, seen in red. Spitzer's infrared view of the starlight, piercing through the obscuring dust, is easily seen, along with the bulge of stars and an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image. This magnificent galaxy has a diameter that is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full Moon.
A More Spectacular Sombrero
Title A More Spectacular Sombrero
Description This movie shifts from the well-known visible-light picture of Messier 104 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope to infrared views from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Messier 104 is commonly known as the Sombrero galaxy because in visible light, it resembles the broad-brimmed Mexican hat. However, in Spitzer's striking infrared view, the galaxy looks more like a "bull's eye." Viewed from Earth, the spiral galaxy is seen nearly edge-on, just six degrees away from its equatorial plane. 50,000 light-years across, the Sombrero galaxy is considered one of the most massive objects at the southern edge of the Virgo cluster of galaxies. It is located 28 million light-years away, hosts a rich system of nearly 2,000 globular clusters and may harbor a super-massive black hole. In Hubble's visible light image, only the near rim of dust can be clearly seen in silhouette. Recent observations using Spitzer's infrared array camera uncovered the bright, smooth ring of dust circling the galaxy, seen in red. Spitzer's infrared view of the starlight, pierced through the obscuring dust, is easily seen, along with the bulge of stars and an otherwise hidden disk of stars within the dust ring. Spitzer's full view shows the disk is warped, which is often the result of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy, and clumpy areas spotted in the far edges of the ring indicate young star-forming regions. The Sombrero galaxy is located some 28 million light-years away. Viewed from Earth, it is just six degrees south of its equatorial plane. Spitzer detected infrared emission not only from the ring, but from the center of the galaxy too, where there is a huge black hole, believed to be a billion times more massive than our Sun. The Spitzer picture is composed of four images taken at 3.6 (blue), 4.5 (green), 5.8 (orange), and 8.0 (red) microns. The contribution from starlight (measured at 3.6 microns) has been subtracted from the 5.8 and 8-micron images to enhance the visibility of the dust features. The Hubble Heritage Team took these observations in May-June 2003 with the space telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images were taken in three filters (red, green, and blue) to yield a natural-color image. The team took six pictures of the galaxy and then stitched them together to create the final composite image. This magnificent galaxy has a diameter that is nearly one-fifth the diameter of the full Moon.
A Hidden, Massive Star Clust …
Title A Hidden, Massive Star Cluster Awash with Red Supergiants
Description The sky is a jewelry box full of sparkling stars in these infrared images. The crown jewels are 14 massive stars on the verge of exploding as supernovae. These hefty stars reside in one of the most massive star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy. The bluish cluster is inside the white box in the large image, which shows the star-studded region around it. A close-up of the cluster can be seen in the inset photo. These large stars are a tip-off to the mass of the young cluster. Astronomers estimate that the cluster is at least 20,000 times as massive as the Sun. Each red supergiant is about 20 times the Sun's mass. The larger color-composite image was taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope for the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE) Legacy project. The survey penetrates obscuring dust along the thick disk of our galaxy to reveal never-before-seen stars and star clusters. The false colors in the image correspond to infrared-light emission. The stars in the large color-composite image all appear blue because they emit most of their infrared light at shorter wavelengths. The inset image, a false-color composite, was captured by the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). Astronomers identified the cluster as a potential behemoth after spotting it in the 2MASS catalogue. They then used the Infrared Multi-object Spectrograph at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona to analyze the cluster's colors. From that analysis, they discovered the red supergiants. They confirmed the red supergiants' pedigree by studying the colors of other red supergiants in data taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The cluster lies 18,900 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Scutum. It is the first in a survey of 130 potentially massive star clusters in the Milky Way that astronomers will study over the next five years using a variety of telescopes, including the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes. The Spitzer image was taken April 4, 2004, the 2MASS image on July 4, 1999. The science team that studied the star cluster consists of Don Figer, Space Telescope Science Institute/Rochester Institute of Techology, John MacKenty, Massimo Robberto, and Kester Smith, Space Telescope Science Institute, Francisco Najarro, Instituto de Estructura de la Materia in Madrid, Spain: Rolf Kudritzki, University of Hawaii in Honolulu, and Artemio Herrero, Universidad de La Laguna in Tenerife, Spain.
A Hidden, Massive Star Clust …
Title A Hidden, Massive Star Cluster Awash with Red Supergiants
Description The sky is a jewelry box full of sparkling stars in these infrared images. The crown jewels are 14 massive stars on the verge of exploding as supernovae. These hefty stars reside in one of the most massive star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy. The bluish cluster is inside the white box in the large image, which shows the star-studded region around it. A close-up of the cluster can be seen in the inset photo. These large stars are a tip-off to the mass of the young cluster. Astronomers estimate that the cluster is at least 20,000 times as massive as the Sun. Each red supergiant is about 20 times the Sun's mass. The larger color-composite image was taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope for the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE) Legacy project. The survey penetrates obscuring dust along the thick disk of our galaxy to reveal never-before-seen stars and star clusters. The false colors in the image correspond to infrared-light emission. The stars in the large color-composite image all appear blue because they emit most of their infrared light at shorter wavelengths. The inset image, a false-color composite, was captured by the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). Astronomers identified the cluster as a potential behemoth after spotting it in the 2MASS catalogue. They then used the Infrared Multi-object Spectrograph at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona to analyze the cluster's colors. From that analysis, they discovered the red supergiants. They confirmed the red supergiants' pedigree by studying the colors of other red supergiants in data taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The cluster lies 18,900 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Scutum. It is the first in a survey of 130 potentially massive star clusters in the Milky Way that astronomers will study over the next five years using a variety of telescopes, including the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes. The Spitzer image was taken April 4, 2004, the 2MASS image on July 4, 1999. The science team that studied the star cluster consists of Don Figer, Space Telescope Science Institute/Rochester Institute of Techology, John MacKenty, Massimo Robberto, and Kester Smith, Space Telescope Science Institute, Francisco Najarro, Instituto de Estructura de la Materia in Madrid, Spain: Rolf Kudritzki, University of Hawaii in Honolulu, and Artemio Herrero, Universidad de La Laguna in Tenerife, Spain.
A Hidden, Massive Star Clust …
Title A Hidden, Massive Star Cluster Awash with Red Supergiants
Description The sky is a jewelry box full of sparkling stars in these infrared images. The crown jewels are 14 massive stars on the verge of exploding as supernovae. These hefty stars reside in one of the most massive star clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy. The bluish cluster is inside the white box in the large image, which shows the star-studded region around it. A close-up of the cluster can be seen in the inset photo. These large stars are a tip-off to the mass of the young cluster. Astronomers estimate that the cluster is at least 20,000 times as massive as the Sun. Each red supergiant is about 20 times the Sun's mass. The larger color-composite image was taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope for the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE) Legacy project. The survey penetrates obscuring dust along the thick disk of our galaxy to reveal never-before-seen stars and star clusters. The false colors in the image correspond to infrared-light emission. The stars in the large color-composite image all appear blue because they emit most of their infrared light at shorter wavelengths. The inset image, a false-color composite, was captured by the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS). Astronomers identified the cluster as a potential behemoth after spotting it in the 2MASS catalogue. They then used the Infrared Multi-object Spectrograph at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona to analyze the cluster's colors. From that analysis, they discovered the red supergiants. They confirmed the red supergiants' pedigree by studying the colors of other red supergiants in data taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The cluster lies 18,900 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Scutum. It is the first in a survey of 130 potentially massive star clusters in the Milky Way that astronomers will study over the next five years using a variety of telescopes, including the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes. The Spitzer image was taken April 4, 2004, the 2MASS image on July 4, 1999. The science team that studied the star cluster consists of Don Figer, Space Telescope Science Institute/Rochester Institute of Techology, John MacKenty, Massimo Robberto, and Kester Smith, Space Telescope Science Institute, Francisco Najarro, Instituto de Estructura de la Materia in Madrid, Spain: Rolf Kudritzki, University of Hawaii in Honolulu, and Artemio Herrero, Universidad de La Laguna in Tenerife, Spain.
Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 1
Title Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 1
Description NASA's new Spitzer Space Telescope has captured an image of an unusual comet that experiences frequent outbursts, which produce abrupt changes in brightness. Periodic comet Schwassmann-Wachmann I (P/SW-1) has a nearly circular orbit just outside that of Jupiter, with an orbital period of 14.9 years. It is thought that the outbursts arise from the build-up of internal gas pressure as the heat of the Sun slowly evaporates frozen carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide beneath the blackened crust of the comet nucleus. When the internal pressure exceeds the strength of the overlying crust, a rupture occurs, and a burst of gas and dust fragments is ejected into space at speeds of 450 miles per hour (200 meters per second). This 24-micron image of P/SW-1 was obtained with Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer. The image shows thermal infrared emission from the dusty coma and tail of the comet. The nucleus of the comet is about 18 miles (30 kilometers) in diameter and is too small to be resolved by Spitzer. The micron-sized dust grains in the coma and tail stream out away from the Sun. The dust and gas comprising the comet's nucleus is part of the same primordial materials from which the Sun and planets were formed billions of years ago. The complex carbon-rich molecules they contain may have provided some of the raw materials from which life originated on Earth. Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 is thought to be a member of a relatively new class of objects called "Centaurs," of which 45 objects are known. These are small icy bodies with orbits between those of Jupiter and Neptune. Astronomers believe that Centaurs are recent escapees from the Kuiper Belt, a zone of small bodies orbiting in a cloud at the distant reaches of the solar system. Two asteroids, 1996 GM36 (left) and 5238 Naozane (right) were serendipitously captured in the comet image. Because they are closer to us than the comet and have faster orbital velocities, they appear to move relative to the comet and background stars, thereby producing a slight elongated appearance. The Spitzer data have allowed astronomers to use thermal measurements, which reduce the uncertainties of visible-light albedo (reflectivity) measurements, to determine their size. With radii of 1.4 and 3.0 kilometers, these are the smallest main-belt asteroids yet measured by infrared means.
Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 1
Title Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 1
Description NASA's new Spitzer Space Telescope has captured an image of an unusual comet that experiences frequent outbursts, which produce abrupt changes in brightness. Periodic comet Schwassmann-Wachmann I (P/SW-1) has a nearly circular orbit just outside that of Jupiter, with an orbital period of 14.9 years. It is thought that the outbursts arise from the build-up of internal gas pressure as the heat of the Sun slowly evaporates frozen carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide beneath the blackened crust of the comet nucleus. When the internal pressure exceeds the strength of the overlying crust, a rupture occurs, and a burst of gas and dust fragments is ejected into space at speeds of 450 miles per hour (200 meters per second). This 24-micron image of P/SW-1 was obtained with Spitzer's multiband imaging photometer. The image shows thermal infrared emission from the dusty coma and tail of the comet. The nucleus of the comet is about 18 miles (30 kilometers) in diameter and is too small to be resolved by Spitzer. The micron-sized dust grains in the coma and tail stream out away from the Sun. The dust and gas comprising the comet's nucleus is part of the same primordial materials from which the Sun and planets were formed billions of years ago. The complex carbon-rich molecules they contain may have provided some of the raw materials from which life originated on Earth. Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 is thought to be a member of a relatively new class of objects called "Centaurs," of which 45 objects are known. These are small icy bodies with orbits between those of Jupiter and Neptune. Astronomers believe that Centaurs are recent escapees from the Kuiper Belt, a zone of small bodies orbiting in a cloud at the distant reaches of the solar system. Two asteroids, 1996 GM36 (left) and 5238 Naozane (right) were serendipitously captured in the comet image. Because they are closer to us than the comet and have faster orbital velocities, they appear to move relative to the comet and background stars, thereby producing a slight elongated appearance. The Spitzer data have allowed astronomers to use thermal measurements, which reduce the uncertainties of visible-light albedo (reflectivity) measurements, to determine their size. With radii of 1.4 and 3.0 kilometers, these are the smallest main-belt asteroids yet measured by infrared means.
Mare Imbrium
title Mare Imbrium
description The smooth dark areas on the Moon's surface are called maria (plural for mare, Latin for seas). These volcanic plains are made up of a rock type known as basalt, similar in composition to the rocks found in Hawaii. They cover 17 percent of the surface area of the Moon. The maria contain physical features such as pits and channels, but lack large volcanos. This oblique photograph looks north across the southern part of Mare Imbrium. The low sun light angle and long shadows accentuate details of the surface structure. The surface in this area is mare basalt. The prominent ridges running from upper left to lower right are wrinkle ridges, formed when the mare surface sagged under the weight of several kilometers of basalt. Similaar wrinkle ridges are seen in other mare regions, including Mare Serenitatis and Mare Humorum. The prominent peak in the lower left is Mt. Lahire, which is 1.7 kilometers high. This photo was taken by the crew of Apollo 15. *Image Credit*: NASA
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
An Eruption on Io
title An Eruption on Io
date 02.26.2007
description The first images returned to Earth by New Horizons during its close encounter with Jupiter feature the Galilean moon Io, snapped with the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 0840 UTC on February 26, while the moon was 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) from the spacecraft. Io is intensely heated by its tidal interaction with Jupiter and is thus extremely volcanically active. That activity is evident in these images, which reveal an enormous dust plume, more than 150 miles high, erupting from the volcano Tvashtar. The plume appears as an umbrella-shaped feature of the edge of Io's disk in the 11 o'clock position in the right image, which is a long-exposure (20-millisecond) frame designed specifically to look for plumes like this. The bright spots at 2 o'clock are high mountains catching the setting sun, beyond them the night side of Io can be seen, faintly illuminated by light reflected from Jupiter itself. The left image is a shorter exposure -- 3 milliseconds -- designed to look at surface features. In this frame, the Tvashtar volcano shows as a dark spot, also at 11 o'clock, surrounded by a large dark ring, where an area larger than Texas has been covered by fallout from the giant eruption. This is the clearest view yet of a plume from Tvashtar, one of Io's most active volcanoes. Ground-based telescopes and the Galileo Jupiter orbiter first spotted volcanic heat radiation from Tvashtar in November 1999, and the Cassini spacecraft saw a large plume when it flew past Jupiter in December 2000. The Keck telescope in Hawaii picked up renewed heat radiation from Tvashtar in spring 2006, and just two weeks ago the Hubble Space Telescope saw the Tvashtar plume in ultraviolet images designed to support the New Horizons flyby. Most of those images will be stored onboard the spacecraft for downlink to Earth in March and April. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
A new color image of the Cra …
Name A new color image of the Crab Nebula taken with the University of Hawaii 88-inch telescope on Mauna Kea.
First Picture from Explorer …
Title First Picture from Explorer VI Satellite
Full Description This is the first crude picture obtained from Explorer VI Earth satellite launched August 7, 1959. It shows a sun-lighted area of the Central Pacific ocean and its cloud cover. The picture was made when the satellite was about 17,000 miles above the surface of the earth on August 14, 1959. At the time, the satellite was crossing Mexico. The signals were received at the South Point, Hawaii, tracking station.
Date 08/14/1959
NASA Center Headquarters
Bright Star Birth Region in …
Title Bright Star Birth Region in a Dim Galaxy
Hubble Views of Dust Disks a …
Title Hubble Views of Dust Disks and Rings Surrounding Young Stars Yield Clues
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. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers their first views of a dust ring around the star HR 4796A and a dark gap dividing an immense dust disk around the star HD 141569. These images may provide important clues to possible planet formation. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1999/03/text/ ]
Hubble Picture Adds to Plane …
Title Hubble Picture Adds to Planet-Making Recipe
Hubble Pinpoints Distant Sup …
Title Hubble Pinpoints Distant Supernovae
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. Peering halfway across the universe to analyze light from exploded stars that died long before our Sun even existed, the Hubble telescope has allowed astronomers to determine that the expansion of the cosmos has not slowed since the initial impetus of the Big Bang. Thus, the universe's expansion should continue to balloon outward indefinitely. These results are based on unprecedented distance measurements to supernovae that are so far away they allow astronomers to determine if the universe was expanding at a faster rate long ago. These images showcase three of the supernovae used in the survey. The arrows in the bottom row of pictures pinpoint these exploding stars, the top row of images shows the regions where the supernovae reside. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1998/02/text/ ]
Hubble Discovers Missing Pie …
Title Hubble Discovers Missing Pieces of Comet Linear
Hubble Hunts Down Binary Obj …
Title Hubble Hunts Down Binary Objects at the Fringe of Our Solar System
Hubble Hunts Down Binary Obj …
Title Hubble Hunts Down Binary Objects at the Fringe of Our Solar System
Hubble Hunts Down Binary Obj …
Title Hubble Hunts Down Binary Objects at the Fringe of Our Solar System
Hubble Hunts Down Binary Obj …
Title Hubble Hunts Down Binary Objects at the Fringe of Our Solar System
Hubble Hunts Down Binary Obj …
Title Hubble Hunts Down Binary Objects at the Fringe of Our Solar System
Hubble Hunts Down Binary Obj …
Title Hubble Hunts Down Binary Objects at the Fringe of Our Solar System
Hubble Hunts Down Binary Obj …
Title Hubble Hunts Down Binary Objects at the Fringe of Our Solar System
Astronomers Puzzled over Com …
Title Astronomers Puzzled over Comet LINEAR's Missing Pieces
Hubble Hunts Down Binary Obj …
Title Hubble Hunts Down Binary Objects at the Fringe of Our Solar System
Hubble Hunts Down Binary Obj …
Title Hubble Hunts Down Binary Objects at the Fringe of Our Solar System
Hubble Hunts Down Binary Obj …
Title Hubble Hunts Down Binary Objects at the Fringe of Our Solar System
Mystery Solved: High-Energy …
Title Mystery Solved: High-Energy Fireworks Linked to Massive Star Cluster
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. Call it the Bermuda Triangle of our Milky Way Galaxy: a tiny patch of sky that has been known for years to be the source of the mysterious blasts of X-rays and gamma rays. Now, a team of astronomers, led by Don Figer of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., has solved the mystery by identifying one of the most massive star clusters in the galaxy. The little-known cluster, which has not been catalogued, is about 20 times more massive than typical star clusters in our galaxy, and appears to be the source of the powerful outbursts. Supporting evidence for the hefty weight of this cluster is the presence of 14 red supergiants, hefty stars that have reached the end of their lives. They bloat up to about 100 times their normal size before exploding as supernovae. This image shows the star-studded region surrounding the massive star cluster. The bluish cluster is inside the white box. A close-up of the cluster can be seen in the inset photo. Read more: * The Full Story [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2006/03/full/ ]
Hubble Observes Planetoid Se …
Title Hubble Observes Planetoid Sedna, Mystery Deepens
Hubble Observes Planetoid Se …
Title Hubble Observes Planetoid Sedna, Mystery Deepens
Astronomers Use Innovative T …
Title Astronomers Use Innovative Technique to Find Extrasolar Planet
Astronomers Map a Hypergiant …
Title Astronomers Map a Hypergiant Star's Massive Outbursts
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. Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the W.M. Keck Observatory, Kameula, Hawaii, astronomers have learned that the gaseous outflow from one of the brightest super-sized stars in the sky is more complex than originally thought. The outbursts are from VY Canis Majoris, a red supergiant star that is also classified as a hypergiant because of its very high luminosity. The eruptions have formed loops, arcs, and knots of material moving at various speeds and in many different directions. The star has had many outbursts over the past 1,000 years as it nears the end of its life. Read more: * The Full Story [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/03/full/ ]
Hubble Observations Provide …
Title Hubble Observations Provide Insight into Planet Birth
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. Hubble observed a "blizzard" of particles in a disk around a young star revealing the process by which planets grow from tiny dust grains. The particles are as fluffy as snowflakes and are roughly ten times larger than typical interstellar dust grains. They were detected in a disk encircling the 12-million-year-old star AU Microscopii. The star is 32 light-years away in the southern constellation of Microscopium, the Microscope. Read more: * The Full Story [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/02/full/ ]
Hubble Sees 'Comet Galaxy' B …
Title Hubble Sees 'Comet Galaxy' Being Ripped Apart By Galaxy Cluster
Ultra-cool Diminutive Star W …
Title Ultra-cool Diminutive Star Weighs In
General Information What is a News Nugget? News Nuggets are bulletins from the world of astronomy. The power of the some of the world's biggest telescopes has been brought to bear to directly measure the mass, for the first time, of one of the smallest stars ever seen in the universe. Barely the size of the planet Jupiter, the dwarf star weighs in at just 8.5 percent of the mass of our Sun. Read more: * Release Text [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/51/text/ ]
The Carina Nebula: Star Birt …
Title The Carina Nebula: Star Birth in the Extreme
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. In celebration of the 17th anniversary of the launch and deployment of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers is releasing one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's cameras. READ: Junior version of this article Amazing Space Learn about this story in the Star Witness, a science newspaper available on our sister site, Amazing Space. [ http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/news/archive/2007/02/ ] It is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth &#151, and death &#151, is taking place. This image is a mosaic of the Carina Nebula assembled from 48 frames taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The Hubble images were taken in the light of neutral hydrogen during March and July 2005. Color information was added with data taken in December 2001 and March 2003 at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Red corresponds to sulfur, green to hydrogen, and blue to oxygen emission.
Astronomers Find Highly Elli …
Title Astronomers Find Highly Elliptical Disk Around Young Star
Hubble Captures Outburst fro …
Title Hubble Captures Outburst from Comet Targeted By Deep Impact
Hubble Captures Deep Impact' …
Title Hubble Captures Deep Impact's Collision with Comet
Hubble Captures Outburst fro …
Title Hubble Captures Outburst from Comet Targeted By Deep Impact
Hubble Captures Deep Impact' …
Title Hubble Captures Deep Impact's Collision with Comet
Hubble Captures Deep Impact' …
Title Hubble Captures Deep Impact's Collision with Comet
Hubble Captures Outburst fro …
Title Hubble Captures Outburst from Comet Targeted By Deep Impact
1 2 3 4 5
1-50 of 222