HubbleSite

Scientists for the first time have made images of the surface of Saturn's giant, haze-shrouded moon, Titan. They mapped light and dark features over the surface of the satellite during nearly a complete 16-day rotation. One prominent bright area they discovered is a surface feature 2,500 miles across, about the size of the continent of Australia. Titan, which is larger than Mercury and slightly smaller than Mars, is the only body in the solar system, other than Earth, that may have oceans and rainfall on its surface. The oceans and rain are composed of ethane-methane rather than water. View the full article

An international team of astronomers has uncovered a galaxy in our own cosmic back yard. Though only ten million light-years away (or five times the distance of the Andromeda galaxy - closest assemblage of stars to our Milky Way Galaxy), this newly discovered city of more than 100 billion stars has gone undetected previously because it is hidden from view behind our Milky Way galaxy. View the full article

This Hubble telescope snapshot of the planet Uranus reveals the planet's rings, at least five of the inner moons, and bright clouds in the Southern Hemisphere. Hubble allows astronomers to revisit the planet at a level of detail not possible since the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by the planet briefly, nearly a decade ago. This picture is a combination of images showing the motion of the inner moons. Each inner moon appears as a string of three dots. Thanks to Hubble's capabilities, astronomers will be able to precisely determine the moons' orbits. View the full article

Astronomers using the Hubble telescope have announced the most accurate distance measurement yet to the remote galaxy M100, located in the Virgo cluster of galaxies. This measurement will help provide a precise calculation of the expansion rate of the universe, called the Hubble Constant, which is crucial to determining the age and size of the universe. They calculated the distance - 56 million light-years - by measuring the brightness of several Cepheid variable stars in the galaxy. Cepheid variables are a class of pulsating star used as "milepost markers" to calculate the distance to nearby galaxies. The bottom image shows a region of M100. This Hubble telescope image is a close-up of a region of the galaxy M100. The top three frames, taken over several weeks, reveal the rhythmic changes in brightness of a Cepheid variable. View the full article

The Hubble telescope has provided new insights into how stars may have formed many billions of years ago in the early universe. Hubble observations of a pair of star clusters suggest they might be linked through stellar evolution processes. The pair of clusters is 166,000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud in the southern constellation Doradus. The clusters are unusually close together for being distinct and separate objects, suggesting that they might be evolutionary relatives. View the full article

Until now, the dim, small stars were considered ideal candidates for dark matter. Whatever dark matter is, its gravitational pull ultimately will determine whether the universe will expand forever or will someday collapse. Picking a region in our Milky Way Galaxy, astronomers predicted that Hubble should have spied 38 red dwarf stars if this class of objects harbored most of the dark matter. The diamond-shaped symbols in the left-hand image illustrate what scientists expected to see. Instead, they saw no stars. View the full article

This series of eight NASA Hubble Space Telescope "snapshots" shows the evolution of the P-Q complex, also called the "gang of four" region, of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9. The eight individual frames chronicle changes in the comet during the 12 months before colliding with Jupiter. The sequence shows that the relative separations of the various cometary fragments, thought to range in size from about 500 meters to almost 4 km (2.5 miles) across, changed dramatically over this period. The apparent separation of Q1 and Q2 was only about 1100 kilometers (680 miles) on 1 July 1993 and increased to 28,000 kilometers (17,400 miles) by 20 July 1994. View the full article

These four NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of Jupiter, as seen in visible (violet) and far-ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths, show the remarkable spreading of the clouds of smoke and dust thrown into the atmosphere after the impacts of the fragments of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9. These dark regions provide the only information ever obtained on the wind direction and speed in Jupiter's upper atmosphere. View the full article

In the Jupiter campaign, scientists wanted to see how the comet collisions affected the Jovian aurorae, rapid and irregular displays of colorful light in a planet's night sky caused by the leakage of charged particles from the magnetosphere into the atmosphere. Following the impacts, some of the resulting debris became electrically charged and traveled along Jupiter's magnetic field lines and created new aurorae in Jupiter's northern hemisphere, as shown in this image. Scientists had never before observed aurorae this far south of where aurorae are typically seen in Jupiter's northern hemisphere. View the full article

This series of snapshots, taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows evolution of the comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact region called the D/G complex. This feature was produced by two nuclei of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 that collided with Jupiter on 17 and 18 July 1994, respectively, and was later modified again by the impact of the S fragment on 21 July 1994. View the full article

This series of color-composite maps of Jupiter, assembled from images taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, allows astronomers to trace changes in the dark impact sites that resulted from the July 1994 impact of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 with the giant planet. Through computer image processing, researchers "peel" the atmosphere of Jupiter off its globe and spread it flat into a map. These cylindrical projections show the entire atmosphere of Jupiter in one map. The HST's images show clearly that dark material produced in the comet explosion has continued to spread in Jupiter's atmosphere. However, the "band" of dark material is still clumpy, which suggests that the major impact sites are still localized and, so, can still be identified. View the full article

In the weeks following comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9's spectacular July collision with Jupiter, a team of Hubble telescope astronomers has pored over imaging and spectroscopic data gleaned during the interplanetary bombardment. Their initial findings, combined with results from other space-borne and ground-based telescopes, shed new light on Jupiter's atmospheric winds, its immense magnetic field, the mysterious dark debris from the impacts, and the composition of the doomed comet itself. These four Hubble telescope images of Jupiter, as seen in visible and far-ultraviolet wavelengths, show the remarkable dispersion of the clouds of smoke and dust thrown into the atmosphere after chunks of the comet slammed into Jupiter's southern region. These dark regions provide the only information ever obtained on the wind direction and speed in Jupiter's upper atmosphere. View the full article

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have found, to their surprise, that a relatively nearby galaxy harbors a powerful quasar. This active galaxy, known as Cygnus A, is the second strongest radio source in the sky. View the full article

A natural color NASA Hubble Space Telescope view of the full disk of the giant planet Jupiter shows numerous comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact sites as seen on July 22, 1994. View the full article

Ultraviolet image of Jupiter taken by the Wide Field Camera of the Hubble Space Telescope. The image shows Jupiter's atmosphere at a wavelength of 2550 Angstroms after many impacts by fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. View the full article

This is a NASA's Hubble Space Telescope image of the impact sites of fragments "D" and "G" from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 which collided with the giant planet Jupiter. The picture has been image processed to correct for the curvature of the disk of Jupiter, so that the spot appears flat, as if the viewer were hovering directly overhead. The large feature was created by the impact of comet fragment "G" which impacted Jupiter on July 18, 1994. The smaller feature to the left was created on July 17, by the impact of comet fragment "D". View the full article

This series of images, which spans more than five days beginning at 5:33 p.m. EDT on July 16, 1994, was obtained with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 using the methane filter that reveals details in Jupiter's higher atmosphere. These images show the development of the ejecta from site A, formed by the impact of the first fragment of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9. View the full article

Image of Jupiter with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's Planetary Camera. Eight impact sights are visible. From left to right are the E/F complex (barely visible on the edge of the planet), the star shaped H site, the impact sites for tiny N, Q1, small Q2, and R, and on the far right limb the D/G complex. The D/G complex also shows extended haze at the edge of the planet. The features are rapidly evolving on timescales of days. The smallest features in the this image are less than 200 kilometers across. This image is a color composite of three filters at 9530, 5500, and 4100 Angstroms. View the full article

This Hubble telescope image of the giant planet Jupiter reveals the impact sites of two fragments from comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. Twenty-one large chunks of the comet rained down upon Jupiter in July 1994. The impact sites, located in the planet's Southern Hemisphere, are the dark spots in the upper left of the photograph. View the full article

These images of Jupiter, by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, reveal the impact sites of fragments "D" and "G" from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. The upper right corners of each image points north, showing the impact sites located in Jupiter's southern hemisphere at a latitude of 44 degrees. View the full article

This comparison of visible light (blue) and far-ultraviolet (FUV) images of Jupiter taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 (WFPC-2) on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show how the appearance of the planet and of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact sites differ at these two wavelengths (1400-2100 and 3100-3600 Angstroms). The images taken 20 minutes apart on July 17,1994 (around 19:00 UT), show the impact sites on the southern hemisphere, from left to right, of comet fragments C, A, and E, about 12, 23, and 4 hours after each collision. Jupiter's satellite 10 is seen crossing above the center of the disk, and the famous Great Red Spot is near the eastern limb. View the full article

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

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

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

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