Space Hubble Telescope News

[Robby]

First ESA Faint Object Camera Science Images - Supernova 1987A

The European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on board NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided a fascinating close-up view of Supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

First ESA Faint Object Camera Science Images the Gravitational Lens G2237 + 0305

The European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on board NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided astronomers with the most detailed image ever taken of the gravitational lens G2237 + 0305, sometimes referred to as the "Einstein Cross." The photograph shows four images of a very distant quasar which has been multiple-imaged by a relatively nearby galaxy acting as a gravitational lens. The angular separation between the upper and lower images is 1.6 arcseconds.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

First ESA Faint Object Camera Science Images Pluto - the "Double Planet"

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has obtained the clearest pictures ever of our solar system's most distant and enigmatic object: the planet Pluto. The observations were made with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

R Aquarii - A Nearby Exploding Star

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has peered into the inner core of the nearby so-called "symbiotic star", R Aquarii, to reveal dramatic new details of the exploding star. The observations were made with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

First ESA Faint Object Camera Science Images The Radio Galaxy PKS 0521-36

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has obtained the most detailed and highest resolution optical images of the radio galaxy PKS 0521-36. The observations were made with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Finds "Blue Straggler" Stars in the Core of a Globular Cluster

High resolution observations of the core of the globular cluster 47 Tucanae, made with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera (FOC) onboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST), provide new evidence that stars may collide and capture each other and gain a new "lease on life" in the process. The FOC observations reveal a surprisingly high concentration of a unique class of star called blue stragglers, which may evolve from "old age" back to a hotter and brighter "youth". These stars may also play a critical role in the dynamic evolution of the cluster's core.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

HST WC/PC First Light Image

On the right is part of the first image taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's (HST) Wide Field/Planetary Camera. It is shown with a ground-based picture from a Las Campanas, Chile, observatory of the same region of the sky. The Las Campanas picture was taken with a 100-inch telescope and it is typical of high-quality pictures obtained from the ground. All objects seen are stars within the Milky Way galaxy..

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

The Resolving Power of the Hubble Space Telescope

The image on the right is a portion of the first image returned by the Wide Field/Planetary Camera on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). On the left is a ground based image of the same area of the sky. The object shown in these images is a double star: the pair of stars is well separated in the HST image but blurred together in the ground based image.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

ESA's Faint Object Camera First Images

The European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, has successfully taken its first engineering test pictures of the heavens. This "first light" picture for the Faint Object Camera (FOC) is the culmination of several weeks of intensive check-out and testing of the camera, following the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) last April 24.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

Hubble Space Telescope Resolves Gaseous Ring Around Supernova

The Hubble Space Telescope has resolved, to an unprecedented detail of 0.1 arcsecond, a mysterious elliptical ring of material around the remnants of Supernova 1987A.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

Hubble Space Telescope Peers Into Core of Distant Galaxy

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided a remarkably new detailed view of the core of a galaxy which lies 40 million light-years away, more than half way to the great Virgo Cluster of galaxies. These results promise that astronomers will be able to use the Hubble Space Telescope to probe the mysterious centers of galaxies, in a search for massive black holes.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

First ESA Faint Object Camera Science Images - Supernova 1987A

The European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on board NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided a fascinating close-up view of Supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

First ESA Faint Object Camera Science Images the Gravitational Lens G2237 + 0305

The European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on board NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided astronomers with the most detailed image ever taken of the gravitational lens G2237 + 0305, sometimes referred to as the "Einstein Cross." The photograph shows four images of a very distant quasar which has been multiple-imaged by a relatively nearby galaxy acting as a gravitational lens. The angular separation between the upper and lower images is 1.6 arcseconds.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

First ESA Faint Object Camera Science Images Pluto - the "Double Planet"

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has obtained the clearest pictures ever of our solar system's most distant and enigmatic object: the planet Pluto. The observations were made with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

R Aquarii - A Nearby Exploding Star

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has peered into the inner core of the nearby so-called "symbiotic star", R Aquarii, to reveal dramatic new details of the exploding star. The observations were made with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

First ESA Faint Object Camera Science Images The Radio Galaxy PKS 0521-36

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has obtained the most detailed and highest resolution optical images of the radio galaxy PKS 0521-36. The observations were made with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Finds "Blue Straggler" Stars in the Core of a Globular Cluster

High resolution observations of the core of the globular cluster 47 Tucanae, made with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera (FOC) onboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST), provide new evidence that stars may collide and capture each other and gain a new "lease on life" in the process. The FOC observations reveal a surprisingly high concentration of a unique class of star called blue stragglers, which may evolve from "old age" back to a hotter and brighter "youth". These stars may also play a critical role in the dynamic evolution of the cluster's core.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

Hubble Observes Exoplanet that Snows Sunscreen

Travelers to the nightside of exoplanet Kepler-13Ab should pack an umbrella because they will be pelted with precipitation. But it's not the kind of watery precipitation that falls on Earth. On this alien world, the precipitation is in the form of sunscreen.

Ironically, the sunscreen (titanium dioxide) is not needed on this side of the planet because it never receives any sunlight. But bottling up some sunlight protection is a good idea if travelers plan on visiting the sizzling hot, permanent dayside, which always faces its star. Visitors won't find any desperately needed sunscreen on this part of the planet.

Astronomers didn't detect the titanium dioxide directly. They used Hubble to find that the atmospheric temperature grows increasingly colder with altitude on the dayside of Kepler-13Ab, which was contrary to what they had expected. On this super-hot dayside, titanium dioxide should exist as a gas, called titanium oxide. If titanium oxide were present in the daytime atmosphere, it would absorb light and heat the upper atmosphere. Instead, high winds carry the titanium oxide around to the permanently dark side of the planet where it condenses to form clouds and precipitation, and rains down as titanium dioxide. The planet's crushing gravity pulls all the titanium dioxide so far down it can't be recycled back into the upper atmosphere on the daytime side.

The Hubble observations represent the first time astronomers have detected this precipitation process, called a "cold trap," on an exoplanet.

Kepler-13Ab is one of the hottest known planets, with a dayside temperature of nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The Kepler-13 system resides 1,730 light-years from Earth.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

Hubble Sees Neptune's Mysterious Shrinking Storm

Three billion miles away on the farthest known major planet in our solar system, an ominous, stinky, dark storm is shrinking out of existence as seen in pictures of Neptune taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Immense dark storms on Neptune were first discovered in the late 1980s by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Since then, only Hubble has tracked these elusive features that play a game of peek-a-boo over the years. Hubble found two dark storms that appeared in the mid-1990s and then vanished. This latest storm was first seen in 2015, but is now shrinking away. The dark spot material may be hydrogen sulfide, with the pungent smell of rotten eggs.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

Hubble Uncovers Never Before Seen Features Around a Neutron Star

Imagine crushing more than 50,000 aircraft carriers into the size of a baseball. This describes neutron stars. They are among the strangest objects in the universe. Neutron stars are a case of extreme physics produced by the unforgiving force of gravity. The entire core of an exploded star has been squeezed into a solid ball of neutrons with the density of an atom’s nucleus. Neutron stars spin as fast as a blender on puree. Some spit out death-star beams of intense radiation — like interstellar lighthouses. These are called pulsars.

These beams are normally seen in X-rays, gamma-rays, and radio waves. But astronomers used Hubble's near-infrared (IR) vision to look at a nearby neutron star cataloged RX J0806.4-4123. They were surprised to see a gush of IR light coming from a region around the neutron star. That infrared light might come from a circumstellar disk 18 billion miles across. Another idea is that a wind of subatomic particles from the pulsar’s magnetic field is slamming into interstellar gas. Hubble's IR vision opens a new window into understanding how these "infernal machines" work.

(More at HubbleSite.com)