Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Win a Deck of Hubble Star Cards

A couple of years ago Universe Today writer John Williams created a card game called Hubble Star Cards, and the game won a Hubble Gold Star award in 2010 from NASA and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies for its inspiring use of the amazing imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope. As the description says, “the vivid, stunning images motivate and engage children of all ages to learn about objects in space. Now, thanks to John, Universe Today is giving away two decks of these beautiful cards!

In order to be entered into the drawing, just put your email address into the box below before Tuesday, December 25nd, 2012. We’ll send you a confirmation email, so you’ll need to click that to be successfully entered.

Hubble Star Cards are a high-quality, stunningly beautiful printed card set that are just a bit larger than a normal card deck, at 3 inches by 5×5 inches, so the beautiful Hubble images are bigger and better.

“Hubble has a unique ability to draw the public into exploring space,” says John. “Through beautiful images of planets, star clusters, pillars of dust, and galaxies, Hubble provides a crucial stepping stone in the process of scientific inquiry. Hubble Star Cards create a hand-held experience that opens the door to new questions and answers. You can actually hold the Universe, all of creation, in the palm of your hand and have fun learning about it at the same time.”

The game includes 60 cards categorized by planets, planetary nebulae, supernovae remnants, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies. The cards include an image, a basic description, a key to the type of object, location in the sky, constellation, and distance from Earth. Possible games include War, Go Fish, Sorting, Distances and Matching. Although targeted for students 8 and older, preschoolers have played many of the games just by using the amazing imagery as a guide.

If you are not a winner, these cards sell for $24.95, but Universe Today readers can get 15% off using UNIVERSE as a coupon code. Check them out at the Hubblestarcards.com website.

We’re only going to use these email addresses for Universe Today giveaways/contests and announcements. We won’t be using them for any other purpose, and we definitely won’t be selling the addresses to anyone else. Once you’re on the giveaway notification list, you’ll be able to unsubscribe any time you like.

Posted on by Jason Major

Behold! Hubble’s Heavenly Holiday “Ornament”

Planetary nebula NGC 5189 as seen by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

It may be just a tad too big to hang on your tree but this bright, twisted planetary nebula would make a beautiful holiday ornament… if scaled a bit down to size, of course.

(Click the image to see it in its full festive glory!)

NGC 5189 is a planetary nebula that lies 1,800 light-years away in the southern constellation Musca. The gorgeous image above, acquired by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 on October 8, 2012, shows the glowing streamers of oxygen, sulfur and hydrogen that are being blown far into space from the hot star star at its heart — HD 117622 (at right.)

The expelled gas forms a double structure, with a series of central blue lobes surrounded by a twisted helix of bright streamers, called radial filaments. These filaments are the result of fast-moving material from the star impacting previously expelled, slower-moving gas, which becomes visible due to ionizing radiation.

The twisted shapes — as opposed to the circular or spherical structures found in many planetary nebulae — may be the result of an unseen binary partner to HD 117622, which over time would affect its rotational orientation.

“The likely mechanism for the formation of this planetary nebula is the existence of a binary companion to the dying star,” said scientist Kevin Volk in a Gemini Observatory article from 2006. “Over time the orbits drift due to precession and this could result in the complex curves on the opposite sides of the star.”

Read more: How Much Do Binary Stars Shape Planetary Nebulae?

The surrounding stars in the image were captured in visible and near-infrared light.

Read more on the Hubble site here, and check out a video below that zooms into the region of the sky where NGC 5189 is located:

Video credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Posted on by Ken Kremer

‘NASA Johnson Style’ Parodies ‘Gangnam Style’ Music Video

Check this out and get in the groove to enjoy some really cool fun from NASA

NASA interns and NASA astronauts have joined forces to create a very humorous and entertaining music video parody of the “Gangnam Style” mega hit by international pop sensation PSY – It’s called “NASA Johnson Style” and its New!

A team of interns from NASA’s Johnson Space Center (pictured below) in Houston created original lyrics, convinced several initially incredulous astronauts to dance along and shot the video at several NASA centers. Then they integrated the whole kit and kaboodle with the “Gangnam Style” instrumental track. Scotty would be proud of the intricate engineering demanded to pull this off – but where are the tribbles !

Image caption: Mike Massimino (center) poses with the intern video team after filming at JSC. Photo credit: Nicole Cloutier

The video features a fun loving crew of NASA astronauts including Mike Massimino, who deftly repaired the Hubble Space Telescope twice among other things, Clayton Anderson and Tracy Caldwell Dyson who lived and worked for many months aboard the International Space Station, and Mike Coats, a Shuttle commander and the retiring Director of the Johnson Space Center.

The video also features actual footage from the International Space Station , Apollo Moonwalks, Curiosity on Mars, Dawn at Vesta, Houston Mission control, the SLS and Orion Crew vehicle as well as real research labs and scientists here on Earth. So it’s fun and meant to be educational as well.

“Gangnam Style” by the Korean singing star PSY is the most popular YouTube music ever and is enjoyed by millions more every day since it was released last summer. It has spawned numerous other parodies.

And in case you missed last summer’s mega hit parody straight from the Red Planet – click on this: “We’re NASA and We Know It (Mars Curiosity)” – Note: this is NOT a NASA production

Now, turn up the volume and enjoy some light hearted cheer in this Holiday season.

Ken Kremer

Posted on by John Williams

Hubble Census Unveils Galaxies Shining Near Cosmic Dawn

This new image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) 2012 campaign reveals a previously unseen population of seven faraway galaxies, which are observed as they appeared in a period 350 million to 600 million years after the Big Bang. Credit: NASA, ESA, R. Ellis (Caltech), and the UDF 2012 Team

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have spotted some of the most distant, dim and ancient galaxies ever detected in a new survey. The images, taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC 3) looks further back in time than any previous Hubble observation, providing information about the conditions in the early Universe.

“This is like a scientific version of the story of Genesis,” said astronomer Avi Loeb from Harvard University.

The seven distant galaxies represent a previously unseen population of galaxies that formed more than 13 billion years ago, when the Universe was less than 3 percent of its present age. In these deepest images to date from Hubble, astronomers were able to take a sample of the amount of galaxies at the time. The results show a smooth decline in the number of galaxies with increasing look-back time to about 450 million years after the Big Bang.

The data provides the first reliable census of this uncharted period of cosmic history, according to the scientists. As astronomers look even deeper into the Universe, galaxy numbers appear to drop off smoothly leading them to believe that the “cosmic dawn” was gradual, not a dramatic event.

“Observations of the microwave afterglow from the Big Bang tell us that reionization happened more than about 13 billion years ago,” said Brant Robertson of the University of Arizona in Tucson, a member of the survey team. “Our data confirms that reionization was a drawn-out process occurring over several hundred million years with galaxies slowly building up their stars and chemical elements. There wasn’t a single dramatic moment when galaxies formed; it was a gradual process.”

These galaxies were found as part of an ambitious Hubble survey of an intensively studied patch of sky known as the Ultra Deep Field (UDF), which was originally taken in 2003-2004, focusing in on a small area in the sky in the constellation Fornax. In the new 2012 campaign, called UDF 2012, a team of astronomers led by Richard Ellis of the California Institute of Technology used the WFC3 to peer deeper into space in near-infrared light than any previous Hubble observation. The observations were made over a period of six weeks during August and September 2012, and the first scientific results are now appearing in a series of scientific papers. The UDF 2012 team is publicly releasing these unique data, after preparing them for other research groups to use.

“Hubble is achieving just great science,” said John Grunsfeld, former astronaut and NASA’s associate administrator for science, speaking at a briefing about the new survey. “This is an origins story, where we’re going back to the beginning, back to the first stars that appeared in the Universe. This validates that when we get James Webb Space Telescope online it will have a lot to look at and a lot to do.”

The James Webb Space Telescope is slated to launch in 2018.

Astronomers detected seven galaxies in the time period 400-600 million years after the Big Bang. All extremely distant, they ranged in distance with redshifts from 8.6 to nearly 12.

Astronomers study the distant universe in near-infrared light because the expansion of space stretches ultraviolet and visible light from galaxies into infrared wavelengths, a phenomenon called “redshift.” The more distant a galaxy, the higher its redshift.

Notably, one of the galaxies may be a distance record breaker, observed 380 million years after the birth of our universe in the Big Bang, corresponding to a redshift of 11.9. This is the galaxy UDFj-39546284, which was previously detected and was originally suggested as the most distant object ever found nearly two years ago by Hubble. Later observations put it at a redshift of 10.3, but the newly refined observations put it even more distant.

A timeline of the Universe and our observations of it. Credit: University of Arizona.

Scientists think that the universe began with the Big Bang about 13.7 billion years ago. Hydrogen formed about 400,000 years later but with no stars, spacetime was dark. About 200 million years later, hydrogen clouds collapsed forming the first stars and galaxies; what astronomers call the “cosmic dawn.” Light from these new stars began breaking down hydrogen into protons and electrons during a time period called cosmic reionization. In the present universe, scientists see galaxies growing in mass and size with the synthesis of elements, leading to the formation of complex molecules including the components to create life. Our Sun and solar system formed just over 4 billion years ago.

“The team pushed Hubble to its limits. This is probably the farthest back Hubble can look, according to the study leader, Richard Ellis. “We are pushing Hubble well beyond what it was designed to do.”

Read more about the findings and the HUDF 2012 Campaign at the HubbleSite.

Read the team’s paper: The Abundance of Star-Forming Galaxies in the Redshift Range 8.5 to 12: New Results from the 2012 Hubble Ultra Deep Field Campaign

Additional Sources: CalTech ESA Hubble

Posted on by John Williams

Pink Galactic Smackdown Results in Cosmic Bulls-eye

Bright pink nebulae encircle spiral galaxy NGC 922 in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/ESA. Zoom: John Williams/TerraZoom and Zoomify

Galaxies pack a wallop. A galactic bulls-eye ringed with pink nebulae is the only evidence of a rare galactic collision of NGC 922 that occurred millions of years ago. Clicking the button on the far right of the toolbar will allow awesomecosmicsauce to tantalize your eyes and work all of the pixels on your computer screen. Pressing the “ESC” will return you to the present universe.

Explore this awesome image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. While lovely, something is amiss in this image. NGC 922 used to be a spiral galaxy. As you zoom across the image, the spiral arms look distorted and disrupted. Hints of a galactic interaction are strewn across the galaxy from the large numbers of bright pink nebulae and blue stars to the spray of dim stars toward the top of the image. Ripples set up as the smaller galaxy passed through the gas and dust clouds of NGC 922 created new star formation. Ultraviolet radiation from these bright new stars cause hydrogen gas in the surrounding nebula to glow a characteristic pink. The tugs of gravity hurled thousands of stars outward.

Episode 60 of the Hubblecast explores NGC 922, a galaxy that has been hit square-on by another. Ripples of star-formation are still propagating out across thousands of light-years of space over 300 million years after the collision, making it a prime example of what astronomers call a collisional ring galaxy.

Scientists believe that millions of years ago a small galaxy, known as 2MASXI J0224301-244443, plunged through the heart of NGC 922. Sometimes, if a small galaxy hits a larger galaxy just right, a circle is formed. But more often than not, galaxies are not aligned perfectly. When a galaxy smacks another off center, one side of the ring is brighter than the other. NGC 922 is a prime example of what astronomers call collisional ring galaxies. Although only a few ring galaxies are seen in our cosmic neighborhood, of which the Cartwheel Galaxy is the most spectacular, ring galaxies appear to be commonplace as we peer further into the past.

As you explore the empty places of the image, look for faraway background galaxies. Several dim spiral galaxies dot the image both outside the galaxy and within the star-speckled interior.

NGC 922 is found about 330 million light-years from Earth toward the constellation Fornax. Sky mapper and French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille introduced Fornax, the Furnace, in 1756. Fornax is relatively devoid of stars allowing astronomers to peer deep into the universe. The constellation was the perfect target for the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image.

NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 922. Credit: NASA, ESA

Source: ESA Hubble

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Stunning Gallery of Previously Unpublished Images from “Hubble’s Universe”

Distant star-forming region NGC 2467. Credit: NASA/ESA, Courtesy of “Hubble’s Universe.”

The new book, Hubble’s Universe: Greatest Discoveries and Latest Images includes several previously unpublished images from the Hubble Space Telescope, and author Terence Dickinson has graciously shared a few of those images with Universe Today. All images are courtesy of NASA, ESA, and “Hubble’s Universe.”

Find out how you can win a copy of “Hubble’s Universe” here.

Read our full review of this book here.

Above is NGC 2467, a nebula similar to the Orion Nebula, but 11 times farther away, in the southern constellation Puppis. A churning foam of strangely shaped dust clouds forms the backdrop to the newborn blue stars emerging from the gas and dust. Most of the radiation that is eating away at the cloud is being emitted by the single brilliant massive star near the center of the image. Its fierce radiation has cleared the surrounding area, and some of the next generation of stars are forming in the denser regions around the edge.

See more beautiful Hubble images below:

The star cluster NGC2060 contains a supernova that exploded about 10,000 years ago, blowing out gas surrounding the cluster.

A celestial shell of interstellar gas being shocked by the blast wave from a supernova, the Ornament Nebula was imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope and combined with X-ray images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The supernova – the explosive destruction of a star – occurred nearly 400 years ago and is 23 light-years across. The nebula is expanding at the rate of the Earth-to-Moon distance every minute.

Glorious Saturn. This exquisite Hubble portrait of Saturn shows the famous rings nearly edge-on. Some of the larger of Saturn’s more than five dozen moons are seen, including most prominently Titan, the largest, casting its inky shadow on the planet. The rings are composed of trillions of icy particles that probably originated with the collision of large moons aeons ago.

Egg Nebula. Concentric dust layers extend over one-tenth of a light-year from this dying sun. Running almost vertically through the image, a thick dust belt blocks the light of the central star. Twin beams of light radiate from the hidden star, illuminating the pitch-black dust like a flashlight shining in a smoky room. The nebula was photographed through polarizing filters to measure how the dust reflects light.

NGC6384. Star birth in this relatively quiescent middle-aged galaxy has declined. Noticeably missing are pinkish nebulas that are the sites of new star formation. Radiation and stellar winds from superhot, young blue stars have cleared out the remaining gas, shutting down any further production of stars. A bright concentration of starlight marks the galaxy’s center. Spiraling outward, dust lanes are silhouetted against the population of whitish middle-aged stars. Much younger blue stars trace the spiral arms.

ARP 273. A cosmic waltz between two galaxies is the result of gravitational tidal distortion from their close proximity to each other. Despite the fact that they are separated by tens of thousands of light-years, a tenuous tidal bridge of material stretches between the pair. The swath of blue across the top is the combined light from clusters of bright, hot, young blue stars, The smaller, nearly edge-on companion galaxy shows intense star formation at its nucleus, which was probably triggered by the interactions. More close encounters and an eventual merger are the likely future of this galaxy duo.

Stephan’s Quintet. One of the most famous examples of interacting galaxies is Stephan’s Quintet. Three of the galaxies have distorted shapes, elongated spiral arms and long, gaseous tidal tails containing myriad star clusters. The interactions among the galaxies have sparked a frenzy of star birth in the pair of intertwined galaxies just above center. This drama is being played out against a rich background of far more distant galaxies. The galaxy at lower left is in the foreground and not part of the grouping. It is 40 million light-years from Earth, while the remaining members of the quintet reside 290 million light-years away.

Galaxy Panorama. This is just 1 of 10 photos of that create a panorama of distant galaxies. Perhaps better than anything else in this book, these images open a window on the universe of galaxies – arguably, the Hubble Space Telescopes’ greatest gift so far. The image reveals a rich tapestry of thousands of galaxies stretching back through most of the universe’s history. The closest galaxies in the foreground emitted their observed light about a billion years ago. The most distant galaxies, a few of the very faint red specks, are seen as they appeared more than 13 billion years ago. The image combines a broad range of colors, from the ultraviolet, through visible light and into the near infrared. Such a detailed view of the deep universe in this combination of color, clarity, accuracy and depth has never before been assembled. The panorama shows galaxy shapes that, at each earlier epoch, appear increasingly chaotic as galaxies grew through accretion, collisions and mergers. The galaxies range from the mature spirals and elliptical in the foreground to smaller, fainter, irregularly shaped galaxies, most of which are farther away and, therefore, existed further back in time. The smaller galaxies are considered the building blocks of the large galaxies we see today.

Ants in space? Designated Menzel 3 (Mz 3), and called the Ant Nebula, this member of Hubble’s celestial menagerie resembles the head and thorax of a garden ant. The central star in Mz3 might have a closely orbiting companion that is exerting strong gravitational tidal forces which are shaping the outflowing gas. The very massive young star Eta Carinae shows a similar outflow pattern to that of Mz3.

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the 86-kilometer-wide lunar impact crater Tycho. Because the Moon has been mapped in great detail by lunar orbiting spacecraft, there is relatively little call for Hubble’s intense gaze to be turned toward the Earth’s natural satellite.

This image was published earlier this year, and shows the dazzling globular star cluster Messier 9, or simply M9, contains hordes of stars swarming in a spherical cloud about 25,000 light-years from Earth. It is too faint to be seen with the naked eye, and when it was discovered by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1764, he observed it only as a faint smudge in his small telescope. He classified the cluster as a nebula (“cloud” in Latin). This Hubble Space Telescope portrait, the best image yet of M9, reveals 250,000 individual stars.

Posted on by Evan Gough

Book Review: “Hubble’s Universe: Greatest Discoveries and Latest Images”

The Hubble Space Telescope has been the subject of several books and articles, and certainly much more will be written about it in the future, as its status as the world’s most successful science experiment will guarantee that. And though breathtaking images are what hooks many people on the telescope, the Hubble was designed and built to do more than just take pretty pictures. The Hubble was planned and built to shed light on several different issues in astronomy and cosmology.

A new book, “Hubble’s Universe: Greatest Discoveries and Latest Images,” by Terence Dickinson, explains the important contributions Hubble has made in the areas of galactic evolution, dark matter and dark energy, and the expansion rate of the Universe. After a quick recounting of the Hubble’s launch and its well-documented initial problems, the author spells out Hubble’s top discoveries, including Hubble’s contribution to our understanding of the super-massive black holes at the centre of galaxies and our first looks at the atmospheres of extra-solar planets.

But the book is more than just clear and readable explanations of discoveries in astronomy. It’s a stunning picture book, equally at home in the living room as it is in the study. The array of pictures is simply awesome, and as Universe Today readers know, astronomy photos can suck anyone in.

See a gallery of new images from the book here.

Find out how you can win a copy of this book here.
The Hubble Space Telescope and the people that work with it are responsible for the images in this book, but it takes a special person to put a book like this together. The author, Terence Dickinson, is well-known in astronomy circles. If you don’t know who he is, you should. He’s the author of the top-selling star-gazing guide in the world, “NightWatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe,” as well as 14 other books. He’s won numerous awards for science-writing and for the popularization of science. An accomplished astro-photographer, one of his photos of the Moon has been on a U.S. postage stamp. He’s even been awarded the Order of Canada, the country’s second highest honour for merit. Terence Dickinson has a healthy passion for science, and has spent his life igniting that passion in others.

“Hubble’s Universe” is loaded with hundreds of photos of the kind we’ve become used to from Hubble, and some in the book have never before been published (see some of them here). The beauty of glowing gas clouds, the rich luminescence of filaments of gas and dust in distant nebulae, the beauty of the planets in our own solar system. This book is basically a feast of astrophotography.

While many books have been written about Hubble, this one will stack up against any of them. All Hubble books have stunning images in them, but what makes this one special is Dickinson’s ability for explanation. The writing is very accessible while still doing an outstanding job of handling some difficult subjects. If you’ve ever struggled with explanations of things like Dark Matter and Dark Energy, “Hubble’s Universe” will bring clarity, without any dumbing down of the subject matter.

You won’t regret buying this book, for yourself or perhaps for someone else. It’s destined to be a staple in libraries and astronomy collections. I’ll be bold and go a little further. “Hubble’s Universe” is destined to be a classic much like some of Dickinson’s other books.

Here’s a video of Dickinson discussing Hubble and his new book:

Posted on by Jason Major

The Brightest Galaxies in the Universe Were Invisible… Until Now

Hubble images of six of the starburst galaxies first found by ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory (Keck data shown below each in blue)

Many of the brightest, most actively star-forming galaxies in the Universe were actually undetectable by Earth-based observatories, hidden from view by thick clouds of opaque dust and gas. Thanks to ESA’s Herschel space observatory, which views the Universe in infrared, an enormous amount of these “starburst” galaxies have recently been uncovered, allowing astronomers to measure their distances with the twin telescopes of Hawaii’s W.M. Keck Observatory. What they found is quite surprising: at least 767 previously unknown galaxies, many of them generating new stars at incredible rates.

Although nearly invisible at optical wavelengths these newly-found galaxies shine brightly in far-infrared, making them visible to Herschel, which can peer through even the densest dust clouds. Once astronomers knew where the galaxies are located, they were able to target them with Hubble and, most importantly, the two 10-meter Keck telescopes — the two largest optical telescopes in the world.

By gathering literally hundreds of hours of spectral data on the galaxies with the Keck telescopes, estimates of their distances could be determined as well as their temperatures and how often new stars are born within them.

“While some of the galaxies are nearby, most are very distant; we even found galaxies that are so far that their light has taken 12 billion years to travel here, so we are seeing them when the Universe was only a ninth of its current age,” said Dr. Caitlin Casey, Hubble fellow at the UH Manoa Institute for Astronomy and lead scientist on the survey. “Now that we have a pretty good idea of how important this type of galaxy is in forming huge numbers of stars in the Universe, the next step is to figure out why and how they formed.”

A representation of the distribution of nearly 300 starbursts in one 1.4 x 1.4 degree field of view.

The galaxies, many of them observed as they were during the early stages of their formation, are producing new stars at a rate of 100 to 500 a year — with a mass equivalent of several thousand Suns — hence the moniker “starburst” galaxy. By comparison the Milky Way galaxy only births one or two Sun-mass stars per year.

The reason behind this explosion of star formation in these galaxies is unknown, but it’s thought that collisions between young galaxies may be the cause.

Another possibility is that galaxies had much more gas and dust during the early Universe, allowing for much higher star formation rates than what’s seen today.

“It’s a hotly debated topic that requires details on the shape and rotation of the galaxies before it can be resolved,” said Dr. Casey.

Still, the discovery of these “hidden” galaxies is a major step forward in understanding the evolution of star formation in the Universe.

“Our study confirms the importance of starburst galaxies in the cosmic history of star formation. Models that try to reproduce the formation and evolution of galaxies will have to take these results into account.”

– Dr. Caitlin Casey, Hubble fellow at the UH Manoa Institute for Astronomy

“For the first time, we have been able to measure distances, star formation rates, and temperatures for a brand new set of 767 previously unidentified galaxies,” said Dr. Scott Chapman, a co-author on the studies. “The previous similar survey of distant infrared starbursts only covered 73 galaxies. This is a huge improvement.”

The papers detailing the results were published today online in the Astrophysical Journal.

Sources: W.M. Keck Observatory article and ESA’s news release.

Image credits: ESA–C. Carreau/C. Casey (University of Hawai’i); COSMOS field: ESA/Herschel/SPIRE/HerMES Key Programme; Hubble images: NASA, ESA. Inset image courtesy W. M. Keck Observatory.

Posted on by Jason Major

Gigantic Plasma Jets Pour From the Heart of Hercules A

Combined Hubble (optical) and VLA (radio) images show enormous radio jets shooting out from the galaxy Hercules A

Combined Hubble (optical) and VLA (radio) images show enormous radio jets shooting out from the galaxy Hercules A

Talk about pouring your heart out! Astronomers using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and the recently-upgraded Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope in New Mexico have identified gigantic jets of plasma, subatomic particles and magnetic fields blasting out of the center of Hercules A, a massive galaxy 2 billion light-years away.

The image above is a combination of optical images from Hubble and radio data gathered by the multi-dish VLA. If our eyes could see in the high-energy spectrum of radio, this is what Hercules A — the otherwise ordinary-looking elliptical galaxy in the center — would really look like.

(Of course, if we could see in radio our entire sky would be a very optically busy place!)

Also known as 3C 348, Hercules A is incredibly massive — nearly 1,000 times the mass of our Milky Way galaxy with a similarly scaled-up version of  a supermassive black hole at its center. Due to its powerful gravity and intense magnetic field Hercules A’s monster black hole is firing superheated material far out into space from its rotational poles. Although invisible in optical light, these jets are bright in radio wavelengths and are thus revealed through VLA observations.

Traveling close to the speed of light, the jets stretch for nearly 1.5 million light-years from both sides of the galaxy. Ring-shaped structures within them suggest that occasional strong outbursts of material have occurred in the past.

Announced on November 29, these findings illustrate the combined imaging power of two of astronomy’s most valuable and cutting-edge tools: Hubble and the newly-updated VLA. The video below shows how it was all done… check it out.

Read more on the NRAO press release here.

Image credits: NASA, ESA, S. Baum and C. O’Dea (RIT), R. Perley and W. Cotton (NRAO/AUI/NSF), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Source: NRAO.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Holiday Gift Idea: Hubble Star Cards

Universe Today writer John Williams is a busy guy. Not only does he write about space and astronomy, he also has his own graphic design and web company called TerraZoom, is the curator of the award winning Starry Critters website, and is a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador. A couple of years ago John created a card game called Hubble Star Cards, and the game won a Hubble Gold Star award in 2010 from NASA and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) for its inspiring use of the amazing imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope. As the description says, “the vivid, stunning images motivate and engage children of all ages to learn about objects in space.”

Hubble Star Cards are now available in a high-quality, stunningly beautiful printed card set.

The cards are a just a bit larger than a normal card deck, at 3 inches by 5×5 inches, so the beautiful Hubble images are bigger and better.

They sell for $24.95, but Universe Today readers can get 15% off using UNIVERSE as a coupon code. Check them out at the Hubblestarcards.com website.

“Hubble has a unique ability to draw the public into exploring space,” says John. “Through beautiful images of planets, star clusters, pillars of dust, and galaxies, Hubble provides a crucial stepping stone in the process of scientific inquiry. Hubble Star Cards create a hand-held experience that opens the door to new questions and answers. You can actually hold the Universe, all of creation, in the palm of your hand and have fun learning about it at the same time.”

The game includes 60 cards categorized by planets, planetary nebulae, supernovae remnants, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies. The cards include an image, a basic description, a key to the type of object, location in the sky, constellation, and distance from Earth. Possible games include War, Go Fish, Sorting, Distances and Matching. Although targeted for students 8 and older, preschoolers have played many of the games just by using the amazing imagery as a guide.

Get more info about the Hubble Star Cards here.