Space and astronomy news
Like a famous (and photogenic) actor followed by paparazzi, the Carina Nebula is one of the most photographed objects in space because of its stunning beauty. Over the years, the Carina Nebula has been one of the Hubble Space Telescope’s most-imaged objects.
Continue reading “Here's a new Image of the Carina Nebula From Hubble”
As far as we know, nobody lives in our neighbour, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC.) So it’s okay to point our telescope there and gaze at it.
Continue reading “Hubble Sees a Glittering Jewel in the Small Magellanic Cloud. But the Jewel is Disappearing”
Open star clusters are groups of stars in loosely-bound gravitational associations. The stars are further apart than the stars in their cousins, the globular clusters. The weak gravity from the loose clusters means open clusters take on irregular shapes. They usually contain only a few thousand stars.
The Hubble Space Telescope captured images of two clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Continue reading “Hubble Spots Two Open Clusters. One is Also an Emission Nebula”
If you like shiny things, some of the most gorgeous objects in space are globular clusters, with their bright, densely packed collections of gleaming stars. And if you like globular clusters, you’re in luck: two different Hubble images of globular clusters were featured this week by NASA and ESA.
Continue reading “Two Great Globular Clusters Seen by Hubble: Pismis 26 and Ruprecht 106”
When stars reach the end of their life cycle, they experience gravitational collapse at their centers and explode in a fiery burst (a supernova). This causes them to shed their outer layers and sends an intense burst of light and high-energy short-wavelength radiation (like X-rays and gamma-rays) out in all directions. This process also creates cosmic rays, which consist of protons and atomic nuclei that are accelerated to close to the speed of light. And on rare occasions, supernovae can also create “light echoes,” rings of light that spread out from the site of the original explosion.
These echoes will appear months to years after the supernova occurs as light from the explosion interacts with the layers of dust in the vicinity. Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), an international team of astronomers was able to document the emergence and evolution of multiple light echoes (LEs). The team traced these echoes to a stripped-envelope supernova (SN 2016adj) located in the central dust lane of Centaurus A, a galaxy located 10 to 16 million light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus.
Continue reading “Hubble saw Multiple Light Echoes Reflecting off Rings of Dust From a Supernova Explosion”
Earlier this month we asked, what could be better than a pair of galaxies observed by a pair of iconic space telescopes? Now, there is an exciting new answer. Even better than a pair of galaxies is a pair of galaxies that are colliding!
The Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope have each taken a look at a pair of intertwined galaxies that are 270 million light-year away from Earth, together called IC 1623. Scientists say this galactic collision has ignited frenzied star formation called a starburst, creating new stars at a rate more than 20 times that of our Milky Way.
Continue reading “Webb and Hubble Peer Into the Wreckage of a Galactic Collision”
What’s better than a pair of galaxies observed by a pair of iconic space telescopes? The answer to that, according to researchers using the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, is finding even more galaxies and other remarkable details no one expected in the duo’s observations.
“Galaxies in the foreground, background, deep background, and into the depths,” said astronomer William Keel from Galaxy Zoo, on Twitter.
Continue reading “Webb and Hubble Work Together to Reveal This Spectacular Galaxy Pair — and Several Bonuses!”
NASA and SpaceX say they’ll conduct a feasibility study into a plan to reboost the 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope to a more sustainable orbit, potentially at little or no cost to NASA.
The plan could follow the model set by last year’s Inspiration4 mission, an orbital trip that was facilitated by SpaceX and paid for by tech billionaire Jared Isaacman as a philanthropic venture. Isaacman, who is now spearheading a privately funded space program called Polaris in cooperation with SpaceX, says he’ll participate in the feasibility study.
“We could be taking advantage of everything that’s been developed within the commercial space industry to execute on a mission, should the study warrant it, with little or no potential cost to the government,” Isaacman said at a news briefing.
Continue reading “NASA and SpaceX Will Study Low-Cost Plan to Give Hubble a Boost”
The famous American baseball player once said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” That’s certainly true of the JWST, which just released its latest “spider-web” image of a distant galaxy. It “watched” IC 5332 using the onboard Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI). In the process it observed spectacular details not easily seen in visible light.
Continue reading “Another Ghostly Spiral Galaxy Revealed by JWST”
Even after thirty years, and with next-generation telescopes (like the James Webb) hogging all the attention, the Hubble Space Telescope still manages to inspire. Recently, Hubble acquired a breathtaking image of NGC 1961, an intermediate spiral galaxy measuring 220,000 light years in diameter and located about 180 million light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis. Intermediate spiral galaxies are so-named because they are between “barred” and “unbarred” spiral galaxies, which means they don’t have a well-defined bar of stars at their centers.
The data used to create this image came from two sources, the first being a study of previously-unobserved objects belonging to the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies (or “Arp galaxies,” named after astronomer Halton Arp). The second source consisted of observations made of the progenitors and explosions of a variety of supernovae. Between 1998 and 2021, four supernovae were observed in NGC 1961 (SN 1998eb, SN 2001is, SN 2013cc, and SN 2021vaz), making it a high-value target for study.
The resulting image captures the dusty spiral arms, bright, hot star-forming regions of NGC 1961 and the galaxy’s glowing center that manages to outshine all the stars in its disk. This is an example of an active galactic nucleus (AGN), where the central region emits tremendous amounts of energy because it contains a supermassive black hole (SMBH) that feeds on the surrounding dust, gas, and stars in the core region.
Many AGNs have been observed emitting bright jets of hot dust and gas that are accelerated to relativistic speeds (a fraction of the speed of light). These jets can be seen millions of light-years away and play an important role in a galaxy’s evolution. NGC 1961 is a fairly common type of AGN that shines brightly but emits low-energy-charged particles. It just goes to show that the old workhorses never lose their mojo! They just keep on delivering well into their later years!
Further Reading: NASA