Space Hubble Telescope News

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Space Telescope Science Institute Celebrates Its 40th Anniversary

Forty years ago in 1981, the first space shuttle launched, the Voyager 2 space probe encountered Saturn, and in Baltimore, Maryland, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) was founded. In that year, NASA selected a proposal by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy to establish STScI on the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus.

STScI began its life as the home of science operations for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Since Hubble’s 1990 launch, the institute has processed and distributed Hubble’s data and shared Hubble’s images and discoveries with the world. As it celebrates its 40th anniversary, STScI is looking forward to the future and its added responsibilities for mission and science operations of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, as well as science operations for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Photo Release: Hubble Celebrates 31st Birthday with Giant Star on the Edge of Destruction

In celebration of the 31st anniversary of the launching of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers aimed the celebrated observatory at one of the brightest stars seen in our galaxy to capture its beauty.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Photo Release: Hubble Inspects a Contorted Spiral Galaxy

This spectacular image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the trailing arms of NGC 2276, a spiral galaxy 120 million light-years away in the constellation of Cepheus. At first glance, the delicate tracery of bright spiral arms and dark dust lanes resembles countless other spiral galaxies. A closer look reveals a strangely lopsided galaxy shaped by gravitational interaction and intense star formation.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Science Release: Hubble Finds First Evidence of Water Vapour at Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede

Astronomers have used archival datasets from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to reveal the first evidence for water vapour in the atmosphere of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, the result of the thermal escape of water vapour from the moon’s icy surface.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Science Release: Hubble Discovers Hydrogen-Burning White Dwarfs Enjoying Slow Ageing

Could dying stars hold the secret to looking younger? New evidence from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope suggests that white dwarfs could continue to burn hydrogen in the final stages of their lives, causing them to appear more youthful than they actually are. This discovery could have consequences for how astronomers measure the ages of star clusters.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Science Release: ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week Prompts New Understanding of Einstein Ring

In December 2020 the ESA/Hubble team published a stunning view from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of one of the most complete Einstein rings ever discovered. This observation has since been used to develop a lensing model to study the physical properties of the lensed galaxy. Scientists have successfully measured the distance to the object and determined the magnification factor to be 20, which effectively makes Hubble’s observing capability equivalent to that of a 48-metre telescope.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Science Release: Hubble Shows Winds in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Are Speeding Up

In Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a storm that has been roiling for centuries, its “outer lane” is moving faster than its “inner lane” — and continues to pick up speed. By analysing long-term data from this high-speed ring, researchers have found that the wind speed has increased by up to 8 percent between 2009 and 2020. These findings could only be made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which has amassed more than 10 years of regular observations, acting like a storm watcher for the planets in our Solar System.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Science Release: Hubble Finds Evidence of Persistent Water Vapour Atmosphere on Europa

Observations by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope recently revealed water vapour in the atmosphere of Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons. A new analysis of archival images and spectra has now revealed that water vapour is also present in the atmosphere of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. The analysis found that a water vapour atmosphere is present only on one hemisphere of the moon. This result advances our understanding of the atmospheric structure of icy moons, and helps lay the groundwork for upcoming science missions which will explore Jupiter’s icy moons.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Photo Release: Hubble Celebrates Halloween With A Glowering Carbon Star

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope celebrates Halloween this year with a striking observation of the carbon star CW Leonis, which resembles a baleful orange eye glaring from behind a shroud of smoke.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Photo Release: Hubble Takes a Grand Tour of the Solar System

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has made its stunning yearly observations of the Solar System’s giant planets, to reveal atmospheric changes.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Photo Release: Hubble Looks at a ‘Space Triangle’ Spawned by a Galaxy Collision

A spectacular head-on collision between two galaxies, known as Arp 143, has fueled the unusual triangular-shaped star-formation frenzy as captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Organisation Release: Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys Celebrates 20 Years of Discovery

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. On 7 March 2002 astronauts installed the ACS during Hubble Servicing Mission 3B, also known as STS-109. With its wide field of view, sharp image quality, and high sensitivity, the ACS delivers many of Hubble’s most impressive images of deep space.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Science Release: A Record Broken: Hubble Finds the Most Distant Star Ever Seen

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has established an extraordinary new benchmark: detecting the light of a star that existed within the first billion years after the Universe’s birth in the Big Bang (at a redshift of 6.2) — the most distant individual star ever seen. This sets up a major target for the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope in its first year

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Science Release: Astronomers Detect Supermassive Black Hole Precursor Lurking in Archival Hubble Data

An international team of astronomers using archival data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and other space- and ground-based observatories have discovered a unique object in the distant, early Universe that is a crucial link between star-forming galaxies and the emergence of the earliest supermassive black holes. This object is the first of its kind to be discovered so early in the Universe’s history, and had been lurking unnoticed in one of the best-studied areas of the night sky.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Photo Release: Celebrating Hubble’s 32nd Birthday with a Galaxy Grouping

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating its 32nd birthday with a stunning look at an unusual close-knit collection of five galaxies, called the Hickson Compact Group 40. This snapshot reflects a special moment in their lifetimes as they fall together before they merge.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Science Release: Hubble observations used to answer key exoplanet questions

Archival observations of 25 hot Jupiters by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have been analysed by an international team of astronomers, enabling them to answer five open questions important to our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres. Amongst other findings, the team found that the presence of metal oxides and hydrides in the hottest exoplanet atmospheres was clearly correlated with the atmospheres' being thermally inverted.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Photo Release: Global Citizen Science Project Finds Over 1700 Asteroid Trails in Hubble Images

Combining artificial intelligence with many keen human eyes, astronomers have found 1701 new asteroid trails in archival data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, consisting of more than 37 000 images that span two decades. The project reflects both Hubble’s value to scientists as an asteroid hunter and how the public can effectively contribute to citizen science initiatives.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Photo Release: A Dazzling Hubble Collection of Supernova Host Galaxies

Spanning from 2003 to 2021, this collection of images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features galaxies that are all hosts to both Cepheid variables and supernovae. These two celestial phenomena are both crucial tools used by astronomers to determine astronomical distance, and have been used to refine our measurement of Hubble’s constant, the expansion rate of the Universe

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

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Science Release: Hubble Helps Explain Why Uranus and Neptune Are Different Colours

Astronomers may now know why Uranus and Neptune are different colours. Using observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, as well as the Gemini North telescope and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, researchers have developed a single atmospheric model that matches observations of both planets. The model reveals that excess haze on Uranus builds up in the planet’s stagnant, sluggish atmosphere and makes it appear a lighter tone than Neptune.

(More at HubbleSite.com)

 

[Robby]

Science Release: Hubble Determines Mass of Isolated Black Hole Roaming Our Milky Way

Astronomers estimate that 100 million black holes roam among the stars in our Milky Way galaxy, but they have never conclusively identified an isolated black hole. Following six years of meticulous observations, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has, for the first time ever, provided direct evidence for a lone black hole drifting through interstellar space by a precise mass measurement of the phantom object. Until now, all black hole masses have been inferred statistically or through interactions in binary systems or in the cores of galaxies. Stellar-mass black holes are usually found with companion stars, making this one unusual.

(More at HubbleSite.com)