Narrow Search
 
 
Advanced Search

Browse All : Images from 1999 and 2000

Printer Friendly
1 2 3 4 … 10 11
1-50 of 542
     
     
Tvashtar Catena, Io
title Tvashtar Catena, Io
date 02.22.2000
description An active volcanic eruption on Jupiter's moon Io was captured in this image taken on Feb. 22, 2000 by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Tvashtar Catena, a chain of giant volcanic calderas centered at 60 degrees north, 120 degrees west, was the location of an energetic eruption caught in action in November 1999. A dark, "L"-shaped lava flow to the left of the center in this more recent image marks the location of the November eruption. White and orange areas on the left side of the picture show newly erupted hot lava, seen in this false color image because of infrared emission. The two small bright spots are sites where molten rock is exposed to the surface at the toes of lava flows. The larger orange and yellow ribbon is a cooling lava flow that is more than more than 60 kilometers (37 miles) long. Dark, diffuse deposits surrounding the active lava flows were not there during the November 1999 flyby of Io. This color mosaic was created by combining images taken in the near-infrared, clear, and violet filters from Galileo's camera. The range of wavelengths is slightly more than that of the human eye. The mosaic has been processed to enhance subtle color variations. The bright orange, yellow, and white areas at the left of the mosaic use images in two more infrared filters to show temperature variations, orange being the coolest and white the hottest material. This picture is about 250 kilometers (about 155 miles) across. North is toward the top and illumination from the Sun is from the west (left). *Image Credit*: NASA
Erupting Io
title Erupting Io
description This means the plume is actually about 385 kilometers (239 miles) high, just like Pele. The uncertainty in estimating the height is about 30 kilometers (19 miles), so the plume could be anywhere from 355 to 415 kilometers (221 to 259 miles) high. If this new plume deposit is just one millimeter (four one- hundredths of an inch) thick, then the eruption produced more ash than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington. These Cassini images were acquired on Jan. 2, 2001, except for the frame at the far right, which was acquired a day earlier. The Galileo images were acquired on Dec. 30 and 31, 2000. Cassini was about 10 million kilometers (6 million miles) from Io, 10 times farther than Galileo. *Image Credit*: NASA, Two tall volcanic plumes and the rings of red material they have deposited onto surrounding surface areas appear in images taken of Jupiter's moon Io by NASA's Galileo and Cassini spacecraft in late December 2000 and early January 2001. One plume, from the volcano Pele, shoots upward nearly 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the surface near Io's equator. The plume has been active for at least four years and, until now, had been far larger than any other plume seen on Io. The images also show a second plume about the same size, closer to Io's north pole. This plume had never been seen before. It is associated with a fresh eruption from the Tvashtar Catena volcanic area. The observations were made during joint studies of the Jupiter system while Cassini was passing Jupiter on its way to Saturn. Galileo passed closer to Io for higher-resolution images, and Cassini acquired images at ultraviolet wavelengths, better for detecting active volcanic plumes. The Cassini ultraviolet images, upper right, reveal two gigantic, actively erupting plumes of gas and dust. Near the equator, just the top of Pele's plume is visible where it projects into sunlight. None of it would be illuminated if it were less than 240 kilometers (150 miles) high. These images indicate a total height for Pele of 390 kilometers (242 miles). The Cassini image at far right shows a bright spot over Pele's vent. Although the Pele hot spot has a high temperature, silicate lava cannot be hot enough to explain a bright spot in the ultraviolet, so the origin of this bright spot is a mystery, but it may indicate that Pele was unusually active when the picture was taken. Also visible is a plume near Io's north pole. Although 15 active plumes over Io's equatorial regions have been detected in hundreds of images from NASA's Voyager and Galileo spacecraft, this is the first image ever acquired of an active plume over a polar region of Io. The plume projects about 150 kilometers (about 90 miles) over the limb, the edge of the globe. If it were erupting from a point on the limb, it would be only slightly larger than a typical Ionian plume, but the image does not reveal whether the source is actually at the limb or beyond it, out of view. A distinctive feature in Galileo images since 1997 has been a giant red ring of Pele plume deposits about 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) in diameter. The Pele ring is seen again in one of the new Galileo images, lower left. When the new Galileo images were returned this month, scientists were astonished to see a second giant red ring on Io, centered around Tvashtar Catena at 63 degrees north latitude. (To see a comparison from before the ring was deposited, see images PIA-01604 or PIA-02309.) Tvashtar was the site of an active curtain of high-temperature silicate lava imaged by Galileo in November 1999 and February 2000 (image PIA- 02584). The new ring shows that Tvashtar must be the vent for the north polar plume imaged by Cassini from the other side of Io.
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
Brown Dwarf LP 944-20: The M …
Name Brown Dwarf LP 944-20: The Mouse That Roared - Chandra Captures Flare From Brown Dwarf
Category Brown Dwarf
Release Date July 11, 2000
Abell 2142: Chandra Maps Cos …
Name Abell 2142: Chandra Maps Cosmic Pressure Fronts
Category Groups & Clusters of Galaxies
Release Date March 01, 2000
M82: Chandra Images Seething …
Name M82: Chandra Images Seething Cauldron of Starburst Galaxy
Category Normal Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies
Release Date January 14, 2000
NGC 5548: Chandra Reads the …
Name NGC 5548: Chandra Reads the Cosmic Bar Code of Gas Around a Giant Black Hole
Category Quasars & Active Galaxies
Release Date February 17, 2000
Deep Field in Canes Venatici …
Name Deep Field in Canes Venatici: Chandra Resolves Cosmic X-Ray Glow and Finds Mysterious New Sources
Category Deep Fields/X-ray Background
Release Date January 13, 2000
Sirius A & B: A Double Star …
Name Sirius A & B: A Double Star System In The Constellation Canis Major
Category White Dwarfs & Planetary Nebulas
Release Date September 26, 2000
Schematic showing comet LINE …
Name Schematic showing comet LINEAR orbit.
Antennae Galaxy: Superbubble …
Name Antennae Galaxy: Superbubbles Bespeak Toil and Trouble
Category Normal Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies
Release Date August 16, 2000
Orion Nebula: Chandra Finds …
Name Orion Nebula: Chandra Finds X-ray Star Bonanza in Orion Nebula
Category Normal Stars & Star Clusters
Release Date January 14, 2000
M82 Black Hole: Chandra Clin …
Name M82 Black Hole: Chandra Clinches Case for Missing Link Black Hole
Category Black Holes
Release Date September 12, 2000
Abell 1795: A Cooling Flow I …
Name Abell 1795: A Cooling Flow In Galaxy Cluster Abell 1795.
Category Groups & Clusters of Galaxies
Release Date December 04, 2000
CXO 0312 Fiore P3: A Possibl …
Name CXO 0312 Fiore P3: A Possible Type 2 Quasar Veiled Black Hole
Category Quasars & Active Galaxies
Release Date April 03, 2000
Type 2 Quasar: Gravitational …
Name Type 2 Quasar: Gravitational Lens Helps Chandra Find Rare Type of Black Hole
Category Quasars & Active Galaxies
Release Date March 20, 2000
Chandra Deep Field-South:
Name Chandra Deep Field-South:
Category Cosmology/Deep Fields/X-ray Background, Black Holes
Release Date March 13, 2001
Iron Spectra from Supermassi …
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
GOODS Chandra Deep Field Sou …
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
Hubble Optical Image of Crab …
Name Hubble Optical Image of Crab Nebula
A Cosmic Magnifying Glass
Title A Cosmic Magnifying Glass
Full Description Scanning the heavens for the first time since the successful December 1999 servicing mission, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope imaged a giant, cosmic magnifying glass, a massive cluster of galaxies called Abell 2218. This 'hefty' cluster resides in the constellation Draco, some 2 billion light-years from Earth. The cluster is so massive that its enormous gravitational field deflects light rays passing through it, much as an optical lens bends light to form an image. This phenomenon, called gravitational lensing, magnifies, brightens, and distorts images from faraway objects. The cluster's magnifying powers provides a powerful "zoom lens" for viewing distant galaxies that could not normally be observed with the largest telescopes. The picture is dominated by spiral and elliptical galaxies. Resembling a string of tree lights, the biggest and brightest galaxies are members of the foreground cluster. Researchers are intrigued by a tiny red dot just left of top center. This dot may be an extremely remote object made visible by the cluster's magnifying powers. Further investigation is needed to confirm the object's identity. The color picture already reveals several arc-shaped features that are embedded in the cluster and cannot be easily seen in the black-and- white image. The colors in this picture yield clues to the ages, distances, and temperatures of stars, the stuff of galaxies. Blue pinpoints hot young stars. The yellow-white color of several of the galaxies represents the combined light of many stars. Red identifies cool stars, old stars, and the glow of stars in distant galaxies. This view is only possible by combining Hubble's unique image quality with the rare lensing effect provided by the magnifying cluster.
Date 01/11/2000
NASA Center Hubble Space Telescope Center
An Expanding Bubble in Space
Title An Expanding Bubble in Space
Full Description Astronomers, using the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in October and November 1997 and April 1999, imaged the Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) with unprecedented clarity. For the first time, they are able to understand the geometry and dynamics of this very complicated system. Earlier pictures taken of the nebula with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 1 left many issues unanswered, as the data could not be fully calibrated for scientific use. In addition, those data never imaged the enigmatic inner structure presented here. The remarkably spherical "Bubble" marks the boundary between an intense wind of particles from the star and the more quiescent interior of the nebula. Research Team: Donald Walter (South Carolina State University), Paul Scowen, Jeff Hester, Brian Moore (Arizona State University), Reggie Dufour, Patrick Hartigan and Brent Buckalew (Rice University).
Date 01/13/2000
NASA Center Hubble Space Telescope Center
Evidence for Recent Liquid W …
Title Evidence for Recent Liquid Water on Mars
Full Description Gullies eroded into the wall of a meteor impact crater in Noachis Terra. This high resolution view (top left) from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) shows channels and associated aprons of debris that are interpreted to have formed by groundwater seepage, surface runoff, and debris flow. The lack of small craters superimposed on the channels and apron deposits indicates that these features are geologically young. It is possible that these gullies indicate that liquid water is present within the martian subsurface today. The MOC image was acquired on September 28, 1999. The scene covers an area approximately 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) wide by 6.7 km (4.1 mi) high (note, the aspect ratio is 1.5 to 1.0). Sunlight illuminates this area from the upper left. The image is located near 54.8S, 342.5W. The context image (above) shows the location of the MOC image on the south-facing wall of an impact crater approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) in diameter. The context picture was obtained by the Viking 1 orbiter in 1980 and is illuminated from the upper left. The large mound on the floor of the crater in the context view is a sand dune field. The Mars Orbiter Camera high resolution images are taken black-and-white (grayscale), the color seen here has been synthesized from the colors of Mars observed by the MOC wide angle cameras and by the Viking Orbiters in the late 1970s. A brief description of how the color was generated: The MOC narrow angle camera only takes grayscale (black and white) pictures. To create the color versions seen here, we have taken much lower resolution red and blue images acquired by the MOC's wide angle cameras, and by the Viking Orbiter cameras in the 1970s, synthesized a green image by averaging red and blue, and created a pallete of colors that represent the range of colors on Mars. We then use a relationship that correlates color and brightness to assign a color to each gray level. This is only a crude approximation of martian color. It is likely Mars would not look like this to a human observer at Mars.
Date 06/22/2000
NASA Center Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Galactic Silhouettes
Title Galactic Silhouettes
Full Description This new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and its Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) shows the unique galaxy pair called NGC 3314. Through an extraordinary chance alignment, a face-on spiral galaxy lies precisely in front of another larger spiral. This line-up provides us with the rare chance to visualize dark material within the front galaxy, seen only because it is silhouetted against the object behind it. Dust lying in the spiral arms of the foreground galaxy stands out where it absorbs light from the more distant galaxy. This silhouetting shows us where the interstellar dust clouds are located, and how much light they absorb. The outer spiral arms of the front galaxy appear to change from bright to dark, as they are projected first against deep space, and then against the bright background of the other galaxy. NGC 3314 lies about 140 million light-years from Earth, in the direction of the southern hemisphere constellation Hydra. The bright blue stars forming a pinwheel shape near the center of the front galaxy have formed recently from interstellar gas and dust. A small, red patch near the center of the image is the bright nucleus of the background galaxy, NGC 3314b. It is reddened for the same reason the setting sun looks red. When light passes through a volume containing small particles (molecules in the Earth's atmosphere or interstellar dust particles in galaxies), its color becomes redder. The Hubble Heritage color image of NGC 3314 was constructed from archival images taken with WFPC2 in April 1999 by Drs. William Keel and Ray White III (University of Alabama) in blue and infrared light, combined with new images obtained by the Heritage team in March 2000 using blue, green and red filters.
Date 05/11/2000
NASA Center Hubble Space Telescope Center
The Reflection Nebula in Ori …
Title The Reflection Nebula in Orion
Full Description Just weeks after NASA astronauts repaired the Hubble Space Telescope in December 1999, the Hubble Heritage Project snapped this picture of NGC 1999, a nebula in the constellation Orion. The Heritage astronomers, in collaboration with scientists in Texas and Ireland, used Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) to obtain the color image. NGC 1999 is an example of a reflection nebula. Like fog around a street lamp, a reflection nebula shines only because the light from an imbedded source illuminates its dust, the nebula does not emit any visible light of its own. NGC 1999 lies close to the famous Orion Nebula, about 1,500 light-years from Earth, in a region of our Milky Way galaxy where new stars are being formed actively. NGC 1999 was discovered some two centuries ago by Sir William Herschel and his sister Caroline, and was cataloged later in the 19th century as object 1999 in the New General Catalogue. This data was collected in January 2000 by the Hubble Heritage Team with the collaboration of star-formation experts C. Robert O'Dell (Rice University), Thomas P. Ray (Dublin Institute for Advanced Study), and David Corcoran (University of Limerick).
Date 03/02/2000
NASA Center Hubble Space Telescope Center
Hubble Reopens Eye on the Un …
Title Hubble Reopens Eye on the Universe
Full Description In its first glimpse of the heavens following the successful December 1999 servicing mission, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured a majestic view of a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a dying, Sun-like star. This stellar relic, first spied by William Herschel in 1787, is nicknamed the "Eskimo" Nebula (NGC 2392) because, when viewed through ground-based telescopes, it resembles a face surrounded by a fur parka. In this Hubble telescope image, the "parka" is really a disk of material embellished with a ring of comet-shaped objects, with their tails streaming away from the central, dying star. The Eskimo's "face" also contains some fascinating details. Although this bright central region resembles a ball of twine, it is, in reality, a bubble of material being blown into space by the central star's intense "wind" of high-speed material. In this photo, one bubble lies in front of the other, obscuring part of the second lobe. Scientists believe that a ring of dense material around the star's equator, ejected during its red giant phase, created the nebula's shape. The bubbles are not smooth like balloons but have filaments of denser matter. Each bubble is about 1 light-year long and about half a light-year wide. Scientists are still puzzled about the origin of the comet-shaped features in the "parka." One possible explanation is that these objects formed from a collision of slow-and fast-moving gases. The Eskimo Nebula is about 5,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Gemini. The picture was taken Jan. 10 and 11, 2000, with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The nebula's glowing gases produce the colors in this image: nitrogen (red), hydrogen (green), oxygen (blue), and helium (violet).
Date 01/24/2000
NASA Center Hubble Space Telescope Center
Light and Shadow in the Cari …
Title Light and Shadow in the Carina Nebula
Full Description Previously unseen details of a mysterious, complex structure within the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) are revealed by this image of the "Keyhole Nebula," obtained with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The picture is a montage assembled from four different April 1999 telescope pointings with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, which used six different color filters. The picture is dominated by a large, approximately circular feature, which is part of the Keyhole Nebula, named in the 19th century by Sir John Herschel. This region, about 8000 light-years from Earth, is located adjacent to the famous explosive variable star Eta Carinae, which lies just outside the field of view toward the upper right. The high resolution of the Hubble images reveals the relative three- dimensional locations of many of these features, as well as showing numerous small dark globules that may be in the process of collapsing to form new stars. Two striking large, sharp-edged dust clouds are located near the bottom center and upper left edges of the image. The former is immersed within the ring and the latter is just outside the ring. The pronounced pillars and knobs of the upper left cloud appear to point toward a luminous, massive star located just outside the field further toward the upper left, which may be responsible for illuminating and sculpting them by means of its high-energy radiation and stellar wind of high-velocity ejected material. These large dark clouds may eventually evaporate, or if there are sufficiently dense condensations within them, give birth to small star clusters. The Carina Nebula, with an overall diameter of more than 200 light- years, is one of the outstanding features of the Southern Hemisphere portion of the Milky Way. The diameter of the Keyhole ring structure shown here is about 7 light-years. These data were collected by the Hubble Heritage Team and Nolan R. Walborn (STScI), Rodolfo H. Barba' (La Plata Observatory, Argentina), and Adeline Caulet (France).
Date 02/03/2000
NASA Center Hubble Space Telescope Center
Light and Shadow in the Cari …
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 ]
Lone Black Holes Discovered …
Title Lone Black Holes Discovered Adrift in the Galaxy
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. Back to top [ #top ]
Hubble Reopens Its Eye on th …
Title Hubble Reopens Its Eye on the Universe
General Information What is an Early Release Observation? A photograph of a celestial object that demonstrates the performance of a new Hubble camera. Back to top [ #top ]
Hubble Reopens Its Eye on th …
Title Hubble Reopens Its Eye on the Universe
General Information What is an Early Release Observation? A photograph of a celestial object that demonstrates the performance of a new Hubble camera. Back to top [ #top ]
Feasting Black Hole Blows Bu …
Title Feasting Black Hole Blows Bubbles
Movies from Hubble Show the …
Title Movies from Hubble Show the Changing Faces of Infant Stars
Ghostly Reflections in the P …
Title Ghostly Reflections in the Pleiades
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Hubble Captures an Extraordi …
Title Hubble Captures an Extraordinary and Powerful Active Galaxy
A Change of Seasons on Satur …
Title A Change of Seasons on Saturn
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Hubble Makes First Direct Me …
Title Hubble Makes First Direct Measurements of Atmosphere on World Around another Star
General Information What is a Space Science Update? Major Hubble discoveries on NASA television ... Astronomers explain their Hubble discoveries at a press conference, called a Space Science Update (SSU), broadcast on NASA television. The SSU includes a question and answer session with members of the media. Back to top [ #top ]
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 Takes a Close-up View …
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 ]
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 Heritage Program Wins …
Title Hubble Heritage Program Wins Photography Award
General Information What is Hubble Heritage? A monthly showcase of new and archival Hubble images. Go to the Heritage site. Back to top [ #top ]
Hubble Surveys Dying Stars i …
Title Hubble Surveys Dying Stars in Nearby Galaxy
Feasting Black Hole Blows Bu …
Title Feasting Black Hole Blows Bubbles
Feasting Black Hole Blows Bu …
Title Feasting Black Hole Blows Bubbles
Movies from Hubble Show the …
Title Movies from Hubble Show the Changing Faces of Infant Stars
1 2 3 4 … 10 11
1-50 of 542