Hubble Archives

June 10, 2019June 10, 2019 by Evan Gough

Perfect Example of a Barred Spiral Galaxy, Seen Face On. This is What Our Milky Way Might Look Like

This striking image was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3, a powerful instrument installed on the telescope in 2009. WFC3 is responsible for many of Hubble’s most breathtaking and iconic photographs, including Pictures of the Week. Shown here, NGC 7773 is a beautiful example of a barred spiral galaxy. A luminous bar-shaped structure cuts prominently through the galaxy's bright core, extending to the inner boundary of NGC 7773's sweeping, pinwheel-like spiral arms. Astronomers think that these bar structures emerge later in the lifetime of a galaxy, as star-forming material makes its way towards the galactic centre — younger spirals do not feature barred structures as often as older spirals do, suggesting that bars are a sign of galactic maturity. They are also thought to act as stellar nurseries, as they gleam brightly with copious numbers of youthful stars. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is thought to be a barred spiral like NGC 7773. By studying galactic specimens such as NGC 7773 throughout the Universe, researchers hope to learn more about the processes that have shaped — and continue to shape — our cosmic home.

The Hubble Space Telescope has given us a beautiful image of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7773. This is a classic galaxy of this type, and highlights the bright bar of concentrated stars that anchors the galaxy’s stately spiral arms. It was captured with the Hubble’s workhorse Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3.)

May 30, 2019May 30, 2019 by Evan Gough

Why do Some Hubble Images Have That Chunk Taken Out of the Corner?

Great question! The answer has to do with Hubble’s history.

It’s easy to forget that the Hubble has been in space since 1990. That’s going on 30 years now. And during that time, it’s been serviced and had its cameras upgraded.

May 3, 2019May 3, 2019 by Matt Williams

16 Years of Hubble Images Come Together in this one Picture Containing 265,000 Galaxies

This Hubble Space Telescope image represents the largest, most comprehensive "history book" of galaxies in the universe.The image, a combination of nearly 7,500 separate Hubble exposures, represents 16 years' worth of observations.The ambitious endeavor, called the Hubble Legacy Field, includes several Hubble deep-field surveys, including the eXtreme Deep Field (XDF), the deepest view of the universe. The wavelength range stretches from ultraviolet to near-infrared light, capturing all the features of galaxy assembly over time.The image mosaic presents a wide portrait of the distant universe and contains roughly 265,000 galaxies. They stretch back through 13.3 billion years of time to just 500 million years after the universe's birth in the big bang. The tiny, faint, most distant galaxies in the image are similar to the seedling villages from which today's great galaxy star-cities grew. The faintest and farthest galaxies are just one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see.The wider view contains 100 times as many galaxies as in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, taken in 2004. The new portrait, a mosaic of multiple snapshots, covers almost the width of the full Moon. Lying in this region is the XDF, which penetrated deeper into space than this legacy field view. However, the XDF field covers less than one-tenth of the full Moon's diameter. Credits: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth and D. Magee (University of California, Santa Cruz), K. Whitaker (University of Connecticut), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), P. Oesch (University of Geneva) and the Hubble Legacy Field team

Even after almost three decades of faithful service, the Hubble Space Telescope continues to operate and provide breathtaking images of the cosmos. As one of NASA’s Great Observatories, its observations of distant galaxies, exoplanets, and the expansion of the Universe have had a revolutionary impact on astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology.

Hubble’s latest contribution comes in the form of a deep-sky mosaic image that was constructed using 16 years’ worth of observations. Known as the “Hubble Legacy Field“, this mosaic is being described as the largest and most comprehensive “history book” of galaxies. All told, it contains roughly 265,000 galaxies that date back to just 500 million years after the Big Bang.

February 13, 2019February 13, 2019 by Matt Williams

Hubble Shows off the Atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune

Hubble Reveals Dynamic Atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune. Credit: NASA/ESA/A. Simon (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong and A. Hsu (University of California, Berkeley)

Like Earth, Uranus and Neptune have season and experience changes in weather patterns as a result. But unlike Earth, the seasons on these planets last for years rather than months, and weather patterns occur on a scale that is unimaginable by Earth standards. A good example is the storms that have been observed in Neptune and Uranus’ atmosphere, which include Neptune’s famous Great Dark Spot.

During its yearly routine of monitoring Uranus and Neptune, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (HST) recently provided updated observations of both planets’ weather patterns. In addition to spotting a new and mysterious storm on Neptune, Hubble provided a fresh look at a long-lived storm around Uranus’ north pole. These observations are part of Hubble‘s long-term mission to improve our understanding of the outer planets.

January 31, 2019January 31, 2019 by Matt Williams

Astronomers Process Hubble’s Deepest Image to get Even More Data, and Show that Some Galaxies are Twice as big as Previously Believed

It allowed us to spot auroras on Saturn and planets orbiting distant suns. It permitted astronomers to see galaxies in the early stages of formation, and look back to some of the earliest periods in the Universe. It also measured the distances to Cepheid variable stars more accurately than ever before, which helped astrophysicists constrain how fast the Universe is expanding (the Hubble Constant).

It did all of this and more, which is why no space telescope is as recognized and revered as the Hubble Space Telescope. And while it’s mission is currently scheduled to end in 2021, Hubble is still breaking new ground. Thanks to the efforts of a research team from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Hubble recently obtained the deepest images of the Universe ever taken from space.

January 25, 2019January 25, 2019 by Evan Gough

Quasars with a Double-Image Gravitational Lens Could Help Finally Figure out how Fast the Universe is Expanding

A Hubble Space Telescope image of a doubly-imaged quasar. Image Credit: NASA Hubble Space Telescope, Tommaso Treu/UCLA, and Birrer et al

How fast is the Universe expanding? That’s a question that astronomers haven’t been able to answer accurately. They have a name for the expansion rate of the Universe: The Hubble Constant, or Hubble’s Law. But measurements keep coming up with different values, and astronomers have been debating back and forth on this issue for decades.

The basic idea behind measuring the Hubble Constant is to look at distant light sources, usually a type of supernovae or variable stars referred to as ‘standard candles,’ and to measure the red-shift of their light. But no matter how astronomers do it, they can’t come up with an agreed upon value, only a range of values. A new study involving quasars and gravitational lensing might help settle the issue.

January 11, 2019January 11, 2019 by Evan Gough

Uh oh, Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 is Down

On January 8, 2019, the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope suspended operations due to a hardware problem. Image Credit: NASA/STScI.

On January 8th, an important piece of equipment on the Hubble Space Telescope went down. The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) suspended its operations because of a hardware. The Hubble team is investigating the anomaly, and during this time the space telescope’s other instruments are working normally and continuing their science operations.

The WFC3 was installed on the Hubble in 2009. It replaced the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). The WFC3 is the most technologically advanced instrument on the Hubble, and it has captured some of the most stunning and famous images ever captured.

January 8, 2019January 8, 2019 by Evan Gough

Check out this Amazing Picture of the Triangulum Galaxy by Hubble.

This gigantic image of the Triangulum Galaxy — also known as Messier 33 — is a composite of about 54 different pointings with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. With a staggering size of 34 372 times 19 345 pixels, it is the second-largest image ever released by Hubble. It is only dwarfed by the image of the Andromeda Galaxy, released in 2015. The mosaic of the Triangulum Galaxy showcases the central region of the galaxy and its inner spiral arms. Millions of stars, hundreds of star clusters and bright nebulae are visible. This image is too large to be easily displayed at full resolution and is best appreciated using the zoom tool.

To the unaided eye, the Triangulum Galaxy is just a smudge in the night sky. But it’s a smudge that contains about 40 billion stars. It also contains some very active star-forming regions, which have attracted the eyes of astronomers.

The Triangulum has a couple other names: Messier 33 and NGC 598. But Triangulum is the easier name to remember. (It’s also sometimes called the “Pinwheel Galaxy.”) But whatever name you choose to call it, this Hubble image brings it to life.

November 27, 2018 by Evan Gough

Hubble’s First Picture After Returning to Service. The Telescope is Fully Operational Again with Three Working Gyros

Hubble's first image after returning to service is of a field of galaxies in the constellation Pegasus. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Shapley (UCLA)

The Hubble Space Telescope is a hero in the astronomy world. And when it suffered a malfunctioning gyro on October 5th, it took a heroic effort on the part of the Hubble team to get it working again. Now we have Hubble’s first picture after its return to service.
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October 31, 2018 by Matt Williams

Yes! Hubble is Back in Operation

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Credits: NASA

Since it was first launched into space in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has become something of a household name. Over the course of its almost thirty years of service, Hubble has established a reputation as one of NASA’s Great Observatories, giving astronomers the ability to look farther into the cosmic field than ever before and learn new and fascinating things about our Universe.

It was therefore a bit of a scare then when NASA announced earlier this month that one of Hubble’s gyroscopes (gyros) had failed, causing it to go into safe mode. But on Oct. 26th, after a considerable effort on behalf of the operations team, NASA announced that the venerable Hubble had been restored to working order. As we speak, it is collecting science data and carrying on in the tradition it helped establish.

Continue reading “Yes! Hubble is Back in Operation”