Hubble Announcements

Hubblecast 65: A whole new view of the Horsehead

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:00:00 +0200

This episode of the Hubblecast celebrates 23 years of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with the unveiling of a beautiful and striking new Hubble image of the Horsehead Nebula.

Our host Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) explains the secrets of nebulae, cosmic clouds of gas and dust that have been the subjects of some of Hubble’s most striking astronomical images. The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most distinctive, and is now shown in a whole new light thanks to a stunning new infrared image — revealing the delicate wisps of gas that are normally hidden by the thick dust that makes up the Horsehead’s famous and familiar shape.

Credit: ESA/Hubble

Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida
Written by: Nicola Guttridge
Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J)
Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa
Images: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI); ESO
Animations: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI); F. Summers, L. Frattare, T. Davis, Z. Levay, T. Borders, and G. Bacon (Viz 3D team, STScI)
Music: Steve Buick
Directed by: Nicola Guttridge
Cinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix.de)
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

Hubblecast 64: It all ends with a bang!

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:00:00 +0200

Most stars in the Universe are small and insignificant, and they will — eventually — fizzle out without much drama. But a few light up the sky when they die, and in the process, they don’t just tell us about the lives of stars: they create the building blocks of life, and help us to unravel the whole history of the Universe. These are the stars that end their lives as supernovae, explosions that are among the most violent events in the Universe.

Over more than 20 years in orbit, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has proved to be an invaluable tool with which to unveil the secrets behind these stellar remnants. Join Dr J, aka Dr Joe Liske, in this explosive episode of the Hubblecast, and discover more about the violent side of the Universe.

Credit

ESA/Hubble

Directed by: Oli Usher and Nicola Guttridge
Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Written by: Oli Usher
Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J)
Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa
Animations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis Calçada
Images: NASA & ESA.
Music: Toomas Erm
Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida
Cinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix.de)
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

Hubblecast 63: From the distant past — Hubble and art

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:00:00 +0100

This episode of the Hubblecast explores how conceptual artist Tim Otto Roth has been inspired by scientific data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to create a unique work of art.

Credit: ESA/Hubble
Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida
Written by: Oli Usher
Narrator: Sara Mendes da Costa
Images: NASA, ESA, Denis Finnin (AMNH), Tim Otto Roth, Bob Fosbury
Footage: Herbert Zodet, Mary Estacion, Tim Otto Roth, Bob Fosbury
Interviews: Oli Usher, Mary Estacion
Music: Toomas Erm
Directed by: Oli Usher
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

Special thanks:

Tim Otto Roth
Bob Fosbury (ESO)
Antonella Nota (ESA/STScI)
Ken Sembach (STScI)
Mike Shara (AMNH)
Benjamin Staude
Connie Fitzgerald (AMNH)
Mary Estacion (STScI/OPO)
Denis Finnin (AMNH)
Frank Summers (STScI/OPO)
The staff of STScI Office of Public Outreach
The staff of the American Museum of Natural History

Hubblecast 62: A spiral galaxy with a secret

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0100

Despite its appearance, which looks much like countless other galaxies, Messier 106 hides a number of secrets. In this episode of the Hubblecast, Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) takes us on a tour of the galaxy. Thanks to a new image, which combines data from Hubble with observations by amateur astronomer Robert Gendler, the galaxy’s secrets are revealed as never before.

Credits

ESA/Hubble
Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida
Written by: Nicky Guttridge and Oli Usher
Narrator: Dr Joe Liske (Dr J)
Images: NASA, ESA, R. Gendler, J GaBany, Digitized Sky Survey 2
Music: Toomas Erm
Directed by: Oli Usher
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

Hubblecast 61: A tour of NGC 5189

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:00:00 +0100

In this episode of the Hubblecast, Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) invites us to tour NGC 5189, a planetary nebula in our galaxy. The nebula looks like a ribbon in space, with a complex structure that comes from the dying throes of a Sun-like star at its centre.

Credits

ESA/Hubble
Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida
Written by: Oli Usher
Narrator: Sara Mendes da Costa
Presented by: Dr Joe Liske (Dr J)
Images: NASA, ESA,, Digitized Sky Survey 2
Music: John Stanford
Directed by: Oli Usher
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

Hubble calendar 2013 now available to download and print

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 18:00:00 +0100

A calendar featuring Hubble’s most amazing pictures of the last year is now available to download for free. With pictures of galaxies, stars and nebulae, the 2013 Hubble Space Telescope calendar is guaranteed to brighten up every month.

The calendar is available to download in a number of formats including PDF, JPEG and TIFF, and can easily be printed at home or at a print shop, as it is made available under a Creative Commons License.

Hubblecast 60: Galaxy scores a bullseye

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 15:00:00 +0100

Episode 60 of the Hubblecast explores NGC 922, a galaxy that has been hit square-on by another. Ripples of star-formation are still propagating out across thousands of light-years of space over 300 million years after the collision, making it a prime example of what astronomers call a collisional ring galaxy.

Credit

ESA/Hubble
Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida
Written by: Oli Usher
Narrator: Sara Mendes da Costa
Images: NASA, ESA, Chandra X-ray Observatory, Digitized Sky Survey 2
Visualisations and animations: B. Conn (MPIA), R. Smith (University of Concepción), R. Taylor (Arecibo Observatory); M. Kornmesser
Music: Toomas Erm
Directed by: Oli Usher
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

Hubblecast now available with subtitles

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 15:30:00 +0100

The Hubblecast, ESA’s popular vodcast which explores the Universe through the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, is now available with subtitles. Future episodes will be published with embedded subtitles in English, plus a selection of other languages submitted by a team of volunteer translators.

Work on subtitling the archive of past episodes has already begun and will be ongoing during the coming year.

To view subtitles, just click the “CC” (closed captioning) button, or select “audio and subtitles” from the control menu in iTunes. (You may need to re-download certain episodes to get the latest subtitles.)

Full information on how to watch Hubblecast with subtitles, how to make them work with alternative software, and on how to contribute translations, is on the subtitles web page.

To sign up to our volunteer translators' email list and get notice of new episodes, click here.

Hubblecast 59: Unweaving the rainbow

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 13:00:00 +0100

In this episode of the Hubblecast, we do away with Hubble’s stunning pictures of the cosmos, and focus on one of the telescope’s most important — but least known — functions.

Like a digital camera, Hubble’s cameras produce colour images by sampling just a handful of colours and combining them together into one picture. The detail is extraordinary — but while the colours are accurate enough for the human eye, they are not good enough for some kinds of scientific work, such as the study of distant galaxies and extrasolar planets.

For much of their research, astronomers use Hubble’s spectrometers, devices that split up light into a rainbow of component colours, to reveal many of the hidden properties of the Universe. These observing methods may not produce attractive images, but they lie behind some of the most profound science that Hubble does.

In this episode, presenter Joe Liske (aka Dr J) and Hubble astronomer Bob Fosbury give a introduction to spectroscopy using Hubble, how it works, and what it’s for.

Hubblecast 58: Caught in the cosmic web

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 15:00:00 +0200

In this episode of the Hubblecast, Joe Liske (aka Dr J) shows how a team of astronomers has used Hubble and a battery of other telescopes to discover the secrets of massive galaxy cluster MACS J0717. They have discovered that an invisible filament of dark matter extends out of the cluster. This is our first direct glimpse of the scaffolding that gives the Universe its structure.