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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 2 min read
Hubble Captures a Neighbor’s Colorful Clouds
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features part of the Small Magellanic Cloud. ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray
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Say hello to one of the Milky Way’s neighbors! This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a scene from one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The SMC is a dwarf galaxy located about 200,000 light-years away. Most of the galaxy resides in the constellation Tucana, but a small section crosses over into the neighboring constellation Hydrus.
Thanks to its proximity, the SMC is one of only a few galaxies that are visible from Earth without the help of a telescope or binoculars. For viewers in the southern hemisphere and some latitudes in the northern hemisphere, the SMC resembles a piece of the Milky Way that has broken off, though in reality it’s much farther away than any part of our own galaxy.
With its 2.4-meter mirror and sensitive instruments, Hubble’s view of the SMC is far more detailed and vivid than what humans can see. Researchers used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 to observe this scene through four different filters. Each filter permits different wavelengths of light, creating a multicolored view of dust clouds drifting across a field of stars. Hubble’s view, however, is much more zoomed-in than our eyes, allowing it to observe very distant objects. This image captures a small region of the SMC near the center of NGC 346, a star cluster that is home to dozens of massive young stars.
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
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Last Updated Mar 21, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Hubble Space Telescope Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Magellanic Clouds The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge
Hearing Hubble
Reshaping Our Cosmic View: Hubble Science Highlights
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By NASA
ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Sankrit In this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, Hubble once again lifts the veil on a famous — and frequently photographed — supernova remnant: the Veil Nebula. The remnant of a star roughly 20 times as massive as the Sun that exploded about 10,000 years ago, the Veil Nebula is situated about 2,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. Hubble images of this photogenic nebula were first taken in 1994 and 1997, and again in 2015.
This view combines images taken in three different filters by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, highlighting emission from hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms. The image shows just a small fraction of the Veil Nebula; if you could see the entire nebula without the aid of a telescope, it would be as wide as six full Moons placed side-by-side.
Although this image captures the Veil Nebula at a single point in time, it helps researchers understand how the supernova remnant evolves over decades. Combining this snapshot with Hubble observations from 1994 will reveal the motion of individual knots and filaments of gas over that span of time, enhancing our understanding of this stunning nebula.
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By NASA
Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 1 min read
Hubble Captures New View of Colorful Veil
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image a supernova remnant called the Veil Nebula. ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Sankrit
Download this image
In this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, Hubble once again lifts the veil on a famous — and frequently photographed — supernova remnant: the Veil Nebula. The remnant of a star roughly 20 times as massive as the Sun that exploded about 10,000 years ago, the Veil Nebula is situated about 2,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. Hubble images of this photogenic nebula were first taken in 1994 and 1997, and again in 2015.
This view combines images taken in three different filters by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, highlighting emission from hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms. The image shows just a small fraction of the Veil Nebula; if you could see the entire nebula without the aid of a telescope, it would be as wide as six full Moons placed side-by-side.
Although this image captures the Veil Nebula at a single point in time, it helps researchers understand how the supernova remnant evolves over decades. Combining this snapshot with Hubble observations from 1994 will reveal the motion of individual knots and filaments of gas over that span of time, enhancing our understanding of this stunning nebula.
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The Death Throes of Stars
Homing in on Cosmic Explosions
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
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Last Updated Feb 28, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Hubble Space Telescope Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Goddard Space Flight Center Nebulae Supernova Remnants Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Reshaping Our Cosmic View: Hubble Science Highlights
Hubble’s Nebulae
Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge
View the full article
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured these drifting noctilucent, or twilight, clouds in a 16-minute recording on Jan. 17. (This looping clip has been speeded up about 480 times.) The white plumes falling out of the clouds are carbon dioxide ice that would evaporate closer to the Martian surface.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/SSI While the Martian clouds may look like the kind seen in Earth’s skies, they include frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice.
Red-and-green-tinted clouds drift through the Martian sky in a new set of images captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover using its Mastcam — its main set of “eyes.” Taken over 16 minutes on Jan. 17 (the 4,426th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity’s mission), the images show the latest observations of what are called noctilucent (Latin for “night shining”), or twilight clouds, tinged with color by scattering light from the setting Sun.
Sometimes these clouds even create a rainbow of colors, producing iridescent, or “mother-of-pearl” clouds. Too faint to be seen in daylight, they’re only visible when the clouds are especially high and evening has fallen.
Martian clouds are made of either water ice or, at higher altitudes and lower temperatures, carbon dioxide ice. (Mars’ atmosphere is more than 95% carbon dioxide.) The latter are the only kind of clouds observed at Mars producing iridescence, and they can be seen near the top of the new images at an altitude of around 37 to 50 miles (60 to 80 kilometers). They’re also visible as white plumes falling through the atmosphere, traveling as low as 31 miles (50 kilometers) above the surface before evaporating because of rising temperatures. Appearing briefly at the bottom of the images are water-ice clouds traveling in the opposite direction roughly 31 miles (50 kilometers) above the rover.
Dawn of Twilight Clouds
Twilight clouds were first seen on Mars by NASA’s Pathfinder mission in 1997; Curiosity didn’t spot them until 2019, when it acquired its first-ever images of iridescence in the clouds. This is the fourth Mars year the rover has observed the phenomenon, which occurs during early fall in the southern hemisphere.
Mark Lemmon, an atmospheric scientist with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, led a paper summarizing Curiosity’s first two seasons of twilight cloud observations, which published late last year in Geophysical Research Letters. “I’ll always remember the first time I saw those iridescent clouds and was sure at first it was some color artifact,” he said. “Now it’s become so predictable that we can plan our shots in advance; the clouds show up at exactly the same time of year.”
Each sighting is an opportunity to learn more about the particle size and growth rate in Martian clouds. That, in turn, provides more information about the planet’s atmosphere.
Cloud Mystery
One big mystery is why twilight clouds made of carbon dioxide ice haven’t been spotted in other locations on Mars. Curiosity, which landed in 2012, is on Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, just south of the Martian equator. Pathfinder landed in Ares Vallis, north of the equator. NASA’s Perseverance rover, located in the northern hemisphere’s Jezero Crater, hasn’t seen any carbon dioxide ice twilight clouds since its 2021 landing. Lemmon and others suspect that certain regions of Mars may be predisposed to forming them.
A possible source of the clouds could be gravity waves, he said, which can cool the atmosphere: “Carbon dioxide was not expected to be condensing into ice here, so something is cooling it to the point that it could happen. But Martian gravity waves are not fully understood and we’re not entirely sure what is causing twilight clouds to form in one place but not another.”
Mastcam’s Partial View
The new twilight clouds appear framed in a partially open circle. That’s because they were taken using one of Mastcam’s two color cameras: the left 34 mm focal length Mastcam, which has a filter wheel that is stuck between positions. Curiosity’s team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California remains able to use both this camera and the higher-resolution right 100 mm focal length camera for color imaging.
The rover recently wrapped an investigation of a place called Gediz Vallis channel and is on its way to a new location that includes boxwork — fractures formed by groundwater that look like giant spiderwebs when viewed from space.
More recently, Curiosity visited an impact crater nicknamed “Rustic Canyon,” capturing it in images and studying the composition of rocks around it. The crater, 67 feet (20 meters) in diameter, is shallow and has lost much of its rim to erosion, indicating that it likely formed many millions of years ago. One reason Curiosity’s science team studies craters is because the cratering process can unearth long-buried materials that may have better preserved organic molecules than rocks exposed to radiation at the surface. These molecules provide a window into the ancient Martian environment and how it could have supported microbial life billions of years ago, if any ever formed on the Red Planet.
More About Curiosity
Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam.
For more about Curiosity, visit:
science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity
News Media Contacts
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Feb 11, 2025 Related Terms
Curiosity (Rover) Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) Explore More
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By European Space Agency
Image: This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image highlights part of the São Francisco River in eastern Brazil. View the full article
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