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Hubble Space Telescope 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 Glossary Posters Hubble on the NASA App More 35th Anniversary 2 min read
Hubble Rings In the New Year
ESA/Hubble, NASA, and D. Erb This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals a tiny patch of sky in the constellation Hydra. The stars and galaxies depicted here span a mind-bending range of distances. The objects in this image that are nearest to us are stars within our own Milky Way galaxy. You can easily spot these stars by their diffraction spikes, lines that radiate from bright light sources, like nearby stars, as a result of how that light interacts with Hubble’s secondary mirror supports. The bright star that sits just at the edge of the prominent bluish galaxy is only 3,230 light-years away, as measured by ESA’s Gaia space observatory.
Behind this star is a galaxy named LEDA 803211. At 622 million light-years distant, this galaxy is close enough that its bright galactic nucleus is clearly visible, as are numerous star clusters scattered around its patchy disk. Many of the more distant galaxies in this frame appear star-like, with no discernible structure, but without the diffraction spikes of a star in our galaxy.
Of all the galaxies in this frame, one pair stands out: a smooth golden galaxy encircled by a nearly complete ring in the upper-right corner of the image. This curious configuration is the result of gravitational lensing that warps and magnifies the light of distant objects. Einstein predicted the curving of spacetime by matter in his general theory of relativity, and galaxies seemingly stretched into rings like the one in this image are called Einstein rings.
The lensed galaxy, whose image we see as the ring, lies incredibly far away from Earth: we are seeing it as it was when the universe was just 2.5 billion years old. The galaxy acting as the gravitational lens itself is likely much closer. A nearly perfect alignment of the two galaxies is necessary to give us this rare kind of glimpse into galactic life in the early days of the universe.
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Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
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Last Updated Jan 10, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
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Mars: Perseverance (Mars 2020) Perseverance Home Mission Overview Rover Components Mars Rock Samples Where is Perseverance? Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Mission Updates Science Overview Objectives Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Perseverance Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 3 min read
Perseverance Blasts Past the Top of Jezero Crater Rim
This SuperCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) mosaic shows part of the target “Duran,” observed on Sol 1357 near the top of Jezero crater’s rim. It was processed using a color-enhancing Gaussian stretch algorithm. NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP. I have always loved the mountains. Growing up on the flat plains of Midwestern USA, every summer I looked forward to spending a few days on alpine trails while on vacation. Climbing upward from the trailhead, the views changed constantly. After climbing a short distance, the best views were often had by looking back down on where we had started. As we climbed higher, views of the valleys below eventually became shrouded in haze. Near the top we got our last views of the region behind us; then it disappeared from view as we hiked over the pass and started down the other side. Approaching the summit held a special reward, as the regions beyond the pass slowly revealed themselves. Frequent stops to catch our breath during our ascent were used to check the map to identify the new peaks and other features that came into view. Sometimes the pass was an exciting gateway to a whole new area to explore.
This ever-changing landscape has been our constant companion over the last five months as Perseverance first climbed out of Neretva Vallis, then past “Dox Castle,” and “Pico Turquino.” We stopped at “Faraway Rock” on Sol 1282 to get a panorama of the crater floor. More recently, we could see many more peaks of the crater rim. As Perseverance crested the summit of “Lookout Hill,” half a mile (800 meters) above the traverse’s lowest point, we got our first views beyond the crater rim, out into the great unknown expanse of Mars’ Nili Planum, including the upper reaches of Neretva Vallis and the locations of two other candidate landing sites that were once considered for Perseverance. As the rover crested the summit, Mastcam-Z took a large panoramic mosaic, and team members are excitedly poring over the images, looking at all the new features. With Perseverance’s powerful cameras we can analyze small geological features such as boulders, fluvial bars, and dunes more than 5 miles (8 kilometers) distant, and major features like mountains up to 35 miles (60 kilometers) away. One of our team members excitedly exclaimed, “This is an epic moment in Mars exploration!”
While Curiosity has been climbing “Mount Sharp” for 10 years, and Spirit and Opportunity explored several smaller craters, no extraterrestrial rover has driven out of such a huge crater as Jezero to see a whole new “continent” ahead. We are particularly excited because it is potentially some of the most ancient surface on the Red Planet. Let’s go explore it!
Perseverance is now in Gros Morne quad, named for a beautiful Canadian national park in Newfoundland, and we will be naming our targets using locations and features in the national park. For the drive ahead, described in a video in a recent press release, our next destination is on the lower western edge of the Jezero crater rim at a region named “Witch Hazel Hill.”
Perseverance made more than 250 meters of progress over the weekend (about 820 feet) and is already at the upper part of Witch Hazel Hill, a location called “South Arm.” Much of the climb up the crater rim was on sandy material without many rocks to analyze. Witch Hazel Hill appears to have much more exposed rock, and the science team is excited about the opportunity for better views and analyses of the geology directly beneath our wheels.
Written by Roger C. Wiens, Principal Investigator of the SuperCam instrument, Purdue University
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Last Updated Dec 19, 2024 Related Terms
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its right-front navigation camera to capture this first view over the rim of Jezero Crater on Dec. 10, 2024, the 1,354th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The camera is facing west from a location nicknamed “Lookout Hill.”NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this scene showing the slippery terrain that’s made its climb up to the rim of Jezero Crater challenging. Rover tracks can be seen trailing off into the distance, back toward the crater’s floor.NASA/JPL-Caltech The road ahead will be even more scientifically intriguing, and probably somewhat easier-going, now that the six-wheeler has completed its long climb to the top.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has crested the top of Jezero Crater’s rim at a location the science team calls “Lookout Hill” and rolling toward its first science stop after the monthslong climb. The rover made the ascent in order to explore a region of Mars unlike anywhere it has investigated before.
Taking about 3½ months and ascending 1,640 vertical feet (500 vertical meters), the rover climbed 20% grades, making stops along the way for science observations. Perseverance’s science team shared some of their work and future plans at a media briefing held Thursday, Dec. 12, in Washington at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, the country’s largest gathering of Earth and space scientists.
“During the Jezero Crater rim climb, our rover drivers have done an amazing job negotiating some of the toughest terrain we’ve encountered since landing,” said Steven Lee, deputy project manager for Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “They developed innovative approaches to overcome these challenges — even tried driving backward to see if it would help — and the rover has come through it all like a champ. Perseverance is ‘go’ for everything the science team wants to throw at it during this next science campaign.”
A scan across a panorama captured by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover shows the steepness of the terrain leading to the rim of Jezero Crater. The rover’s Mastcam-Z camera system took the images that make up this view on Dec. 5. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Since landing at Jezero in February 2021, Perseverance has completed four science campaigns: the “Crater Floor,” “Fan Front,” “Upper Fan,” and “Margin Unit.” The science team is calling Perseverance’s fifth campaign the “Northern Rim” because its route covers the northern part of the southwestern section of Jezero’s rim. Over the first year of the Northern Rim campaign, the rover is expected to visit as many as four sites of geologic interest, take several samples, and drive about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers).
“The Northern Rim campaign brings us completely new scientific riches as Perseverance roves into fundamentally new geology,” said Ken Farley, project scientist for Perseverance at Caltech in Pasadena. “It marks our transition from rocks that partially filled Jezero Crater when it was formed by a massive impact about 3.9 billion years ago to rocks from deep down inside Mars that were thrown upward to form the crater rim after impact.”
This animation shows the position of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover as of Dec. 4, 2024, the 1,347th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, along with the proposed route of the mission’s fifth science campaign, dubbed Northern Rim, over the next several years. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/University of Arizona “These rocks represent pieces of early Martian crust and are among the oldest rocks found anywhere in the solar system. Investigating them could help us understand what Mars — and our own planet — may have looked like in the beginning,” Farley added.
First Stop: ‘Witch Hazel Hill’
With Lookout Hill in its rearview mirror, Perseverance is headed to a scientifically significant rocky outcrop about 1,500 feet (450 meters) down the other side of the rim that the science team calls “Witch Hazel Hill.”
“The campaign starts off with a bang because Witch Hazel Hill represents over 330 feet of layered outcrop, where each layer is like a page in the book of Martian history. As we drive down the hill, we will be going back in time, investigating the ancient environments of Mars recorded in the crater rim,” said Candice Bedford, a Perseverance scientist from Purdue University in West Layfette, Indiana. “Then, after a steep descent, we take our first turns of the wheel away from the crater rim toward ‘Lac de Charmes,’ about 2 miles south.”
Lac de Charmes intrigues the science team because, being located on the plains beyond the rim, it is less likely to have been significantly affected by the formation of Jezero Crater.
After leaving Lac de Charmes, the rover will traverse about a mile (1.6 kilometers) back to the rim to investigate a stunning outcrop of large blocks known as megabreccia. These blocks may represent ancient bedrock broken up during the Isidis impact, a planet-altering event that likely excavated deep into the Martian crust as it created an impact basin some 745 miles (1,200 kilometers) wide, 3.9 billion years in the past.
More About Perseverance
A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, to help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and as the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), is designed to send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
For more about Perseverance:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance
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Last Updated Dec 12, 2024 Related Terms
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3 Min Read They Grow So Fast: Moon Tree Progress Since NASA’s Artemis I Mission
In the two years since NASA’s Orion spacecraft returned to Earth with more than 2,000 tree seedlings sourced in a partnership with USDA Forest Service, Artemis I Moon trees have taken root at 236 locations across the contiguous United States. Organizations are cultivating more than just trees, as they nurture community connections, spark curiosity about space, and foster a deeper understanding of NASA’s missions.
Universities, federal agencies, museums, and other organizations who were selected to be Moon tree recipients have branched out to provide their community unique engagements with their seedling.
Children sitting in a circle around a newly planted Moon tree and learning about NASA’s Artemis I mission. Adria Gillespie “Through class visits to the tree, students have gained a lot of interest in caring for the tree, and their curiosity for the unknown in outer space sparked them to do research of their own to get answers to their inquiries,” said Adria Gillespie, the district science coach at Greenfield Union School District in Greenfield, California.
The presence of a Moon tree at schools has blossomed into more student engagements surrounding NASA’s missions. Along with planting their American Sycamore, students from Eagle Pointe Elementary in Plainfield, Illinois, are participating in a Lunar Quest club to learn about NASA and engage in a simulated field trip to the Moon.
Eagle Pointe Elementary students also took part in a planting ceremony for their seedling, where they buried a time capsule with the seed, and established a student committee responsible for caring for their Moon tree.
At Marshall STEMM Academy in Toledo, Ohio, second grade students were assigned reading activities associated with their Moon tree, fourth graders created Moon tree presentations to show the school, and students engaged with city leaders and school board members to provide a Moon tree dedication.
Two individuals planting a Moon tree. Brandon Dillman A seedling sent to The Gathering Garden in Mount Gilead, North Carolina, is cared for by community volunteers. Lessons with local schools and 4-H clubs, as well as the establishment of newsletters and social media to maintain updates, have sprouted from The Gathering Garden’s Loblolly Pine.
Sprucing Up the Moon Trees’ Environment
In addition to nurturing their Moon tree, many communities have planted other trees alongside their seedling to foster a healthier environment. In Castro Valley, California, a non-profit called ForestR planted oak, fir, and sequoia trees to nestle their seedling among a tree “family.”
New homes for additional Moon tree seedlings are being identified each season through Fall 2025. Communities continue to track how the impact of NASA’s science and innovation grows alongside their Moon trees.
NASA’s “new generation” Moon trees originally blossomed from NASA’s Apollo 14 mission, where NASA astronaut Stuart Roosa carried tree seeds into lunar orbit. NASA’s Next Generation STEM project partnered with USDA Forest Service to bring Moon trees to selected organizations. As NASA continues to work for the benefit of all, its Moon trees have demonstrated how one tiny seed can sprout positive change for communities, the environment, and education.
Learn more about NASA’s STEM engagements: https://stem.nasa.gov
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