Astronomy and Stars
Discussions about astronomy and stars. As we look further out what can we find in the universe beyond Earth's atmosphere?
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This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of Jupiter's cloudtops was taken at 5:32 EDT on July 16, 1994, shortly after the impact of the first fragment (A) of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. A violet (410 nanometer) filter of the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 was used to make the image 1.5 hours after the impact. View the full article
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Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute huddle around monitors to get a glimpse of images from fragment A of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9's collision with Jupiter in July 1994. View the full article
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Sequence of images showing evidence for a plume near the terminator of Jupiter at the time of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9's fragment A impact with Jupiter in July 1994. View the full article
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This is a composite photo, assembled from separate images of Jupiter and cornet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9, as imaged by the Wide Field & Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), aboard. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). View the full article
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Astronomers using the Hubble telescope have uncovered the strongest evidence yet that the planet-making process is common in the Milky Way Galaxy. Observations clearly reveal that great disks of dust – the raw material for planet formation – are swirling around at least half and probably many more of the stars in the Orion Nebula, a star-forming region only 1,500 light-years from Earth. View the full article
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Astronomers using the Hubble telescope have found seemingly conclusive evidence for a massive black hole in the center of the giant elliptical galaxy M87, located 50 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. Earlier observations suggested that the black hole was present, but they were not decisive. This observation provides very strong support for the existence of gravitationally collapsed objects, which were predicted 80 years ago by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. This image shows a spiral-shaped disk of hot gas in the core of M87. Hubble measurements indicate that the disk's rapid rotation is strong evidence that it contains a massive…
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The Hubble telescope has returned valuable new images of supernova 1994I in the inner regions of the "Whirlpool Galaxy," M51, located 20 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici. The arrow marks the supernova's location. The supernova was discovered by amateur astronomers on April 2, 1994 and has been the target of investigations by astronomers using ground-based optical and radio telescopes. At its brightest, around April 10, the supernova was about 100 million times more luminous than the Sun. A supernova is a violent stellar explosion that destroys a massive star. View the full article
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The Hubble telescope has obtained the best images yet of a mysterious mirror-imaged pair of rings of glowing gas encircling the site of the stellar explosion called supernova 1987A. One possibility for these "hula hoops" of gas is that the two rings might be caused by a high-energy beam of radiation that is sweeping across the gas, like a searchlight sweeping across clouds. Though all of the rings appear inclined to our view (so that they appear to intersect), they are probably in three different planes. The small, bright ring lies in a plane containing the supernova; one larger ring lies in front of and the other behind the smallest one. View the full article
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This is a composite HST image taken in visible light showing the temporal evolution of the brightest region of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9. In this false-color representation, different shades of red color are used to display different intensities of light. View the full article
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This is the clearest view yet of the distant planet Pluto and its moon Charon, as revealed by the Hubble telescope. Hubble snapped this image when the planet was 2.6 billion miles (4.4 billion kilometers) from Earth, or nearly 30 times the separation between Earth and the Sun. The two objects are shown as clearly separate and sharp disks. View the full article
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The giant gaseous planet Jupiter and its moon Io are featured in this Hubble telescope picture. One of Io's many volcanoes, Pele, appears as a dark spot surrounded by an irregular orange oval on the lower part of the moon. The orange material has been ejected from the volcano and spread over a huge area. Though the volcano was first discovered by the Voyager spacecraft, the distinctive orange color of the volcanic deposits is a new discovery. View the full article
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This Hubble telescope image [right] reveals a faint galaxy, the home of a quasar. The wealth of new detail in this picture helps solve a three-decade-old mystery about the true nature of quasars, the most distant and energetic objects in the universe. The picture clearly shows that the quasar, called 1229+204, lies in the core of a galaxy that has a common shape, consisting of two spiral arms of stars connected by a bar-like feature. The host galaxy is in a spectacular collision with a dwarf galaxy. That collision apparently fuels the quasar "engine" at the galaxy's center - presumably a massive black hole - and also triggers many sites of new star-formation. A ground-b…
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The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) has recently selected 11 young scientists for the 1994 Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. The awardees were selected from a pool of applications from highly-qualified candidates worldwide. Inaugurated in 1990, the Hubble Fellowship Program funds research opportunities for a significant fraction of the approximately two hundred Ph.D. astronomers who graduate annually. The program is a joint venture between NASA and STScI in cooperation with astronomical institutions across the United States. View the full article
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Two astronomers have discovered that our own Milky Way galaxy and most of its neighboring galaxies, contained within a huge volume of the universe, one billion light-years in diameter, are drifting with respect to the more distant universe. This startling result may imply that the universe is "lumpier" on a much larger scale than can be readily explained by any current theory. "The new observations thus strongly challenge our understanding of how the universe evolved," says Dr. Tod Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO). View the full article
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These images of Comet P/Shoemaker- Levy 9 (1993e) fragments were made by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The cometary chunks are expected to plunge into Jupiter's atmosphere in July 1994. The comet was torn into numerous pieces by the massive planet's gravitational pull as it passed by Jupiter in summer 1992. View the full article
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A NASA Hubble Space Telescope "natural color" image of the material surrounding the star Eta Carinae, as imaged by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC-2). The Camera was installed in the Hubble Space Telescope during the STS-61 Hubble Servicing Mission. The WFPC-2 optically corrects for the aberration of the telescope's primary minor, restoring the telescope's vision to its originally planned clarity. View the full article
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A NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of a region of the Great Nebula in Orion, as imaged by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. This is one of the nearest regions of very recent star formation (300,000 years ago). The nebula is a giant gas cloud illuminated by the brightest of the young hot stars at the top of the picture. Many of the fainter young stars are surrounded by disks of dust and gas, that are slightly more than twice the diameter of the solar system (or 100 Astronomical Units in diameter). View the full article
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These comparison images of the core of the globular cluster 47 Tucanae (NGC104) were taken with the COSTAR Corrected Faint Object Camera to show the improvement In performance when compared to images taken with the uncorrected camera. View the full article
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This series of images of Supernova 1 987A was taken with ESA's Faint Object Camera aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, prior to and following the HST Servicing Mission. The images demonstrate the dramatic improvement in Hubble's capabilities following the installation of the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR), which compensates for spherical aberration in Hubble's primary mirror. The new picture has provided the most detailed closeup view ever obtained of the exploding star and its surroundings. Since SNi1987A first appeared in the southern sky nearly seven years ago (February 24, 19871, the outer envelope of the exploding star has been expandi…
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An image of the grand design spiral galaxy M100 obtained with the second generation Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WFPC-2), newly installed in the Hubble Space Telescope. Though the galaxy lies several tens of millions of light-years away, modified optics incorporated within the WFPC-2 allow Hubble to view M100 with a level of clarity and sensitivity previously possible only for the very few nearby galaxies that compose our "Local Group." Just as one does not learn about the diversity of mankind by conversing only with your next door neighbor, astronomers must study many galaxies in a host of different environments if they are to come to understand how our own galaxy, o…
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This pair of images of a single star, taken with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera (FOC), demonstrate that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has been restored fully to its planned optical performance. The COSTAR mirrors remove the effect of spherical aberration in the HST's primary mirror. The FOC will now be able to observe extremely faint celestial objects with a clarity and sensitivity unmatched by ground-based telescopes. View the full article
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This comparison image of the core of galaxy M100 shows the dramatic improvement in the Hubble telescope's view of the universe. The new image (right) was taken with the second generation Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WFPC2), which was installed during the STS-61 Hubble Servicing Mission. The picture beautifully demonstrates that the corrective optics incorporated within WFPC2 compensate fully for Hubble's near-sightedness. The new camera will allow Hubble to probe the universe with unprecedented clarity and sensitivity. The picture clearly shows faint structure as small as 30 light-years across in a galaxy tens of millions of light-years away. View the full ar…
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This sequence of pictures shows successive steps in optical improvement from ground based telescopes to the newly improved Hubble Space Telescope and demonstrates the unique capability of the repaired HST. HST offers superb resolution, which allows astronomers to distinguish individual afar. in other galaxies. The resolution also allows very faint stars to be seen. This set of pictures demonstrates that the repaired HST can see stars which could never before be detected. View the full article
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An image of a star-forming region in the 30 Doradus nebula, surrounding the dense star cluster R136. The image was obtained using the second generation Wide Filed and Planetary Camera (WFPC-2), installed in the Hubble Space Telescope during the STS-61 Servicing Mission. The WFPC-2 contains modified optics to correct for the aberration of the Hubble's primary mirror. The new optics will allow the telescope to tackle many of the most important scientific programs for which the it was built, but had to be temporarily shelved with the discovery of the spherical aberration in 1990. View the full article
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These three images are of a very bright (Wolf-Rayet) star, Melnick 34, located in the giant star-forming region called 30 Doradus in the Large Magellanic Cloud. In the background are a number of fainter stars that are comparable in brightness to our Sun. A ground-based telescope captured the image at left. Hubble's first-generation visible-light camera, the Wide Field and Planetary Camera, snapped the center picture before the telescope's blurred vision was corrected. The image at right was taken by Hubble's new visible-light camera, the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, which is equipped with a corrective optics system. In this new image the star appears sharper, and …
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