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Posts Tagged ‘Hubble’

Hubble captures stunning gravitational interaction between a trio of galaxies

05 Aug

NASA has published a stunning image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope that shows a ‘three-way gravitational tug-of-war between interacting galaxies.’ The galaxies in the show are in system Arp 195, a system featured in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, a list of the ‘weirder and more wonderful galaxies in the universe.’

Arp 195, otherwise known as UGC 4653, is a galaxy with material ejected from nuclei. It’s one of 15 Arp-numbered galaxies with this characteristic. All but one of these galaxies are interacting or have recently interacted with other celestial objects. The trademark tidal features of the galaxies, including Arp 195, appear to be the result of gravitational interactions.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton. Click to enlarge.

Hubble’s new sighting is in the Lynx constellation, about 747 million light-years from Earth. It’s fantastic to see new images from Hubble, as the venerable space telescope suffered significant downtime following a computer glitch earlier this summer. Hubble recently returned to service and celebrated by publishing a pair of stunning monochromatic images last month.

‘These images, from a program led by Julianne Dalcanton of the University of Washington in Seattle, demonstrate Hubble’s return to full science operations. [Left] ARP-MADORE2115-273 is a rarely observed example of a pair of interacting galaxies in the southern hemisphere. [Right] ARP-MADORE0002-503 is a large spiral galaxy with unusual, extended spiral arms. While most disk galaxies have an even number of spiral arms, this one has three.’ Text and image credit: Science: NASA, ESA, STScI, Julianne Dalcanton (UW) Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI). Click to enlarge.

The hiatus aside, Hubble’s observational time is valuable. NASA writes, ‘Observing time with Hubble is extremely valuable, so astronomers don’t want to waste a second. The schedule for Hubble observations is calculated using a computer algorithm which allows the spacecraft to occasionally gather bonus snapshots of data between longer observations. This image of the clashing triplet of galaxies in Arp 195 is one such snapshot. Extra observations such as these do more than provide spectacular images – they also help to identify promising targets to follow up with using telescopes such as the upcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.’

Hubble offers a unique look into distant space, and it’s great to see that the telescope is working well following its concerning issue. If you’d like to see more of what Hubble is up to, you can check out an image gallery here.

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Hubble captures supernova 70M light-years away as it briefly outshines its host galaxy

06 Oct

The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured images of an exploding star 70 million light-years away. The event was recorded as part of an ongoing program to measure the expansion rate of the universe in order to better understand its age. For a moment, the explosion outshined its entire host galaxy and the resulting energy was ‘equal to the radiance of 5 billion Suns.’

NASA has assembled its images from the Hubble Space Telescope to create a new time-lapse sequence, seen below. The supernova explosion took place in the spiral galaxy NGC 2525. In February 2018, Hubble began its observation of SN2018gv after a Japanese amateur astronomer, Koichi Itagaki, first detected it in mid-January. The supernova has been used to help precisely the expansion rate of the universe, which is itself critical to our understanding of the universe.

The time-lapse sequence above spanned nearly a year, with the supernova first appearing ‘as a blazing star located on the galaxy’s outer edge. It initially outshines the brightest stars in the galaxy before fading out of sight.’

Nobel Laureate Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and John Hopkins University says, ‘No earthly fireworks display can compete with this supernova, captured in its fading glory by the Hubble Space Telescope.’ Riess is the leader of the High-z Supernova Search Team and the Supernovae H0 for the Equation of State (SH0ES) Team.

The NASA Hubble Site news release continues, ‘The type of supernova seen in this sequence originated from a burned-out star—a white dwarf located in a close binary system—that is accreting material from its companion star. When the white dwarf reaches a critical mass, its core becomes hot enough to ignite nuclear fusion, turning it into a giant atomic bomb. This thermonuclear runaway process tears the dwarf apart. The opulence is short-lived as the fireball fades away.’ SN2018gv is a Type Ia supernova. You can learn more about supernovae and the characteristics of each type in this article from BBC’s Sky at Night.

NASA, ESA, and A. Riess (STScI/JHU) and the SH0ES team Acknowledgment: M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

Supernovae like SN2018gv peak at the same brightness, which allows them to act a type of standard, ‘standard candles.’ With the actual peak brightness known, scientists can determine the distances of host galaxies by comparing visible brightness. With this information, it is then possible to measure the expansion rate of the universe itself. You can learn more about how Hubble has aided in our understanding of the universe’s expansion rate in this article.

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NASA shares new portrait of Jupiter captured by Hubble Space Telescope

31 Aug

The aging Hubble Space Telescope has produced a new full portrait image of Jupiter, our Solar System’s stormy gas giant. NASA shared the image earlier this month, though it was captured by the space telescope on June 27. The portrait features Jupiter’s colorful bands, as well as its iconic Giant Red Spot, a massive storm that has been raging on the planet for hundreds of years.

According to NASA, the new image features ‘a more intense color palette’ related to the clouds visible in Jupiter’s atmosphere, exceeding that of past portraits. The space agency explains that this new image was captured in visible light using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3.

NASA describes the importance of the image in a post, pointing out various bands and colors that hint at changes in the gas giant’s atmosphere. The two cloud bands visible below and above the Great Red Spot, for example, are moving in opposite directions, NASA explains, each separated by winds moving up to 644km/h (400mph).

The portrait comes amid ongoing work with the James Webb Space Telescope, which will eventually replace Hubble, offering newer technology and improved camera capabilities, among other things. The new space telescope is scheduled to launch in 2021.

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Hubble ushers in 29th anniversary with colorful new Southern Crab Nebula image

30 Apr

Just in time for the Hubble Space Telescope’s 29th anniversary comes a new image of the Southern Crab Nebula (Hen 2-104) captured in recent weeks, offering a clear look at the nebula first captured by Hubble on August 24, 1999. Unlike the first image, which is pixelated and orange, the new image is colorful with a higher resolution.

The Southern Crab Nebula is located in Centaurus constellation’s southern hemisphere; though it is shaped like an hourglass, the nebula’s bright edges give a vaguely crab-like appearance, hence the name.

According to NASA, the nebula was first observed in the 1960s, though it was thought to be an ordinary star until the first image was captured by the ESO’s La Silla Observatory in 1989. It was Hubble’s initial 1999 image that revealed the nebula’s ‘complicated nested structures,’ the space agency explains.

The new higher resolution image is a composite created from multiple images captured by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. The images were captured in different colors that are associated with the oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and hydrogen gases present in the nebula. The Hubble Space Telescope website offers technical details on how the Southern Crab Nebula formed.

Other notable images captured by Hubble are available here.

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