Hubble Space Telescope Archives

November 9, 2022November 9, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Hubble saw the Same Supernova at Three Different Times Thanks to Gravitational Lensing

As cosmic events go, supernova explosions epitomize the saying, “Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse.” They’re the deaths of stars so massive that they tear through their fuel in a short time. Then, they explode and create gorgeous scenes of stellar destruction. These seminal events enrich the universe with chemical elements for new generations of stars and planets.

November 7, 2022February 7, 2023 by Matt Williams

Hubble saw Multiple Light Echoes Reflecting off Rings of Dust From a Supernova Explosion

Artist view of a supernova explosion. Credit: NASA

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.

October 28, 2022October 28, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

JWST Sees the Same Galaxy From Three Different Angles Thanks to a Gravitational Lens

This illustration shows how gravitational lensing works. The gravity of a large galaxy cluster is so strong, it bends, brightens and distorts the light of distant galaxies behind it. The scale has been greatly exaggerated; in reality, the distant galaxy is much further away and much smaller. Credit: NASA, ESA, L. Calcada

One of the great tragedies of the night sky is that we will never travel to much of what we see. We may eventually travel to nearby stars, and even distant reaches of our galaxy, but the limits of light speed and cosmic expansion make it impossible for us to travel beyond our local group. So we can only observe distant galaxies, and we can only observe them from our home in the universe. You might think that means we can only see one face of those galaxies, but thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope that isn’t entirely true.

October 25, 2022October 25, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Webb and Hubble Peer Into the Wreckage of a Galactic Collision

This image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope depicts IC 1623, an entwined pair of interacting galaxies which lies around 270 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cetus. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Armus & A. Evans; CC BY 4.0 Acknowledgement: R. Colombari.

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.

October 19, 2022October 19, 2022 by Evan Gough

Here’s Webb’s View of the Pillars of Creation

The Pillars of Creation are set off in a kaleidoscope of color in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared-light view. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI).

The James Webb Space Telescope is living up to expectations. When it was launched, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said it would “… open up secrets of the universe that will be just stupendous, if not almost overwhelming.” Nelson’s statement rings true a few months into the telescope’s multi-year mission.

October 7, 2022October 7, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Webb and Hubble Work Together to Reveal This Spectacular Galaxy Pair — and Several Bonuses!

By combining data from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope, this image of galaxy pair VV 191 includes near-infrared light from Webb, and ultraviolet and visible light from Hubble. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Rogier Windhorst (ASU), William Keel (University of Alabama), Stuart Wyithe (University of Melbourne), JWST PEARLS Team, Alyssa Pagan (STScI).

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.

September 29, 2022September 29, 2022 by Alan Boyle

NASA and SpaceX Will Study Low-Cost Plan to Give Hubble a Boost

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.

September 13, 2022September 13, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Galactic Photobombing

These two spiral galaxies appear to be colliding, but are only overlapping from our vantage point at Earth. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Keel/Galaxy Zoo.

This image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, appears to show two spiral galaxies colliding. In fact, they are just overlapping from our vantage point and are likely quite distant from each other. The galaxies are named SDSS J115331 and LEDA 2073461, and they lie more than a billion light-years from Earth. This ‘photobombing’ of one galaxy getting in the same picture as another was originally found by volunteers from the Galaxy Zoo project, which uses the power of crowdsourcing to find unusual galaxies in our Universe.

August 23, 2022August 23, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

The Latest Webb Observations Don’t Disprove The Big Bang, But They Are Interesting

Diagram showing the Lambda-CBR universe, from the Big Bang to the the current era. Credit: Alex Mittelmann/Coldcreation

Okay, so let’s start with the obvious. The big bang is not dead. Recent observations by the James Webb Space Telescope have not disproven the big bang, despite certain popular articles claiming otherwise. If that’s all you needed to hear, then have a great day. That said, the latest Webb observations do reveal some strange and unexpected things about the universe, and if you’d like to know more, keep reading.

August 16, 2022August 16, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Brand New Stars in the Orion Nebula, Seen by Hubble

New stars seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in the Orion Nebula. ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Bally; Acknowledgment: M. H. Özsaraç.

The Orion Nebula is a giant cloud of gas and dust that spans more than 20,000 times the size of our own solar system. It one of the closest active star-forming regions to Earth, and is therefore one of the most observed and photographed objects in the night sky. The venerable Hubble Space Telescope has focused on the Orion Nebula many times, peering into giant cavities in the hazy gas, and at one point, Hubble took 520 images to create a giant mosaic of this spellbinding nebula.

Now, Hubble has captured new views of a wispy, colorful region in the Orion Nebula surrounding the Herbig-Haro object HH 505.