Hubble Archives

June 25, 2021July 19, 2021 by Matt Williams

There’s a Problem With Hubble, and NASA Hasn’t Been Able to fix it yet

The Hubble Space Telescope could be considered the first of the Super Telescopes. In this image it is being released from the carbo bay of the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990. Image: By NASA/IMAX - http://mix.msfc.nasa.gov/abstracts.php?p=1711, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6061254

For over thirty years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been in continuous operation in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and revealing never-before-seen aspects of the Universe. In addition to capturing breathtaking images of our Solar System and discovering extrasolar planets, Hubble also probed the deepest reaches of time and space, causing astrophysicists to revise many of their previously-held theories about the cosmos.

Unfortunately, Hubble may finally be reaching the end of its lifespan. In recent weeks, NASA identified a problem with the telescope’s payload computer which suddenly stopped working. This caused Hubble and all of its scientific instruments to go into safe mode and shut down. After many days of tests and checks, technicians at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center have yet to identify the root of the problem and get Hubble back online.

May 3, 2021May 3, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Astronomers are Watching a gas Giant Grow, Right in Front of Their Eyes

In the vastness of space, astronomers are likely to find instances of almost every astronomical phenomena if they look hard enough. Many planetary phenomena are starting to come into sharper focus as the astronomy community continues to focus on finding exoplanets. Now a team led by Yifan Zhou at UT Austin has directly imaged a gas giant still in formation.

May 2, 2021May 2, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Instead of Betelgeuse, Keep Your eye on AG Carinae, Another Star That’s About to go Supernova

Astrophotography is one of the most gratifying parts of space exploration, and there’s nothing better at it than Hubble. Recently, it celebrated the 31st anniversary of its launch by taking a spectacular image of one of the most impressive stars in the sky – AG Carinae. In the not too distant future, Hubble, or a successor, might be able to capture an even more spectacular display from the star when it goes supernova.

March 26, 2021March 26, 2021 by Scott Alan Johnston

Newly Forming Stars Don’t Blast Away Material as Previously Believed. So Why Do They Stop Growing?

We thought we understood how stars are formed. It turns out, we don’t. Not completely, anyway. A new study, recently conducted using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, is sending astronomers back to the drawing board to rewrite the accepted model of stellar formation.

March 9, 2021March 9, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

VY Canis Majoris is “Like Betelgeuse on Steroids”

The disappearance of a star can take many forms. It could go supernova. It could turn into a black hole. Or it could just fade away quietly. Sometimes, the last of these is actually the most interesting to observe. That is the case for one of the largest stars ever found – VY Canis Majoris, a red supergiant approximately 3840 light years away in the Canis Major constellation.

March 2, 2021March 2, 2021 by Nancy Atkinson

Jupiter has Added a Comet to its Trojan Collection

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped this image of the young comet P/2019 LD2 as it orbits near Jupiter's captured ancient asteroids, which are called Trojans. This icy object is the first comet astronomers have spotted near the Trojan population. CREDITS: NASA, ESA, STScI, B. Bolin (IPAC/Caltech)

Jupiter is notorious for capturing objects that venture too close to the gas giant and its enormous pull of gravity. Asteroids known as Jupiter Trojans are a large group of space rocks that have been snared by the planet, which usually remain in a stable orbit near one of the Jupiter’s Lagrangian points.

But now, the Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a comet near Jupiter’s Trojan asteroid population. This is the first time a comet has been found in this region, and the team of scientists studying the object – named P/2019 LD2 (LD2) – think the unexpected comet is only a temporary visitor.

January 23, 2021January 23, 2021 by Matthew Cimone

The Universe in Formation. Hubble Sees 6 Examples of Merging Galaxies

Newly released collage of six galaxy mergers used in the HiPEEC survey. Top Row Left to Right: NGC 3256, 1614, 4195 Bottom Row Left To Right: NGC 3690, 6052, 34 - Credit ESA/Hubble/NASA

^{Audio narration by the author is available above}

10 billion years ago, galaxies of the Universe were ablaze with the light of newly forming stars. This epic phase of history is known as “Cosmic Noon” – the height of all star creation. Galaxies like our Milky Way aren’t creating stars at nearly the rates they were in the ancient past. However, there is a time when galaxies in the present can explode with star formation – when they collide with each other. This recently published collage of merging galaxies by the Hubble HiPEEC survey (Hubble imaging Probe of Extreme Environments and Clusters) highlights six of these collisions which help us understand star formation in the early Universe.

December 30, 2020December 30, 2020 by Nancy Atkinson

Hubble Releases a New Image of Neptune, Revealing a Rapidly Shifting Storm

This Hubble Space Telescope snapshot of the dynamic blue-green planet Neptune reveals a monstrous dark storm [top center] and the emergence of a smaller dark spot nearby [top right]. CREDITS: NASA, ESA, STScI, M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and L.A. Sromovsky and P.M. Fry (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Storms on Neptune seem to follow a pattern of forming, strengthening and then dissipating over the course of about two Earth years. But a Neptunian storm spotted in the planet’s atmosphere over two years ago has done something quite different: it has reversed course and is still going strong.

November 24, 2020November 24, 2020 by Evan Gough

Hubble Sees Dark Shadows That Could Be Cast by a Supermassive Black Hole

This Hubble Space Telescope image of the heart of nearby active galaxy IC 5063 reveals a mixture of bright rays and dark shadows coming from the blazing core, home of a supermassive black hole. Astronomers suggest that a ring of dusty material surrounding the black hole may be casting its shadow into space. Image Credit: NASA/STScI

We use the term ‘supermassive black hole’ with a kind of casual familiarity. But stop and think about what they really are: Monstrous, beguiling singularities where the understood laws of physics and cosmology are brought to their knees. A region where gravity is so powerful that it warps everything around it, drawing material in—even light itself—and sometimes spitting out jets of energy at near-light-speed.

It was only recently that we got our first image of one of these monstrosities. Now, the Hubble has captured an image of a supermassive black hole (SMBH), or what might be part of its shadow, anyway.

September 10, 2020September 10, 2020 by Matthew Cimone

A Sunspot, Revealed in Incredible Detail by Europe’s Newly Upgraded GREGOR Telescope

Sunspot image from the newly upgraded GREGOR Telescope

I wear glasses for astigmatism. But, as a stargazer with a visual impediment, turns out I’m in good company. The GREGOR telescope, a solar telescope located at the Teide Observatory in the Canary Islands also suffered from an astigmatism that was recently corrected…to very stellar results.

Opened in 2012, GREGOR is part of a new generation of solar (Sun observing) telescopes. Before 2002, solar scopes were quite small in diameter; under one metre. The Sun is close, and VERY bright, so your telescope doesn’t need to be as wide as those used for deep-space imaging. GREGOR itself is 1.5m (compare that to some of the largest telescopes imaging distant faint objects like the Keck Observatory at 10m. But without the special filters/optics used by a solar scope, a regular telescope staring at the Sun would be destroyed by the Sun’s light). A telescope’s power is often related to its ability to magnify. But just like enlarging a low-resolution photo, the more you magnify, the fuzzier the image becomes (that’s why those scenes in crime shows where they yell ‘enhance!’ and a photo grows to reveal a criminal are not realistic). Ultimately, a telescope’s diameter provides the higher resolution photo. GREGOR is designed to take those high-resolution images of our local Star. How high resolution? Imagine being able to distinguish a 50km wide feature on the Sun from 140 million km away – basically the same as being able to read the text on a coin from a kilometre away.