Hubble Announcements

Hubblecast 54: 22 years in pictures

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0200

To celebrate the 22nd anniversary of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope this month, episode 54 of the Hubblecast gives a slideshow of some of the best images from over two decades in orbit, set to specially commissioned music.

Please note that although this episode does not have narration, the images are described in subtitles which can be displayed by clicking on the “CC” (closed captioning) button.

Find out how to view and contribute subtitles for the Hubblecast in multiple languages, or translate this video on dotSUB.

List of images and descriptions:

1990: Saturn
Among the first images to be sent back from Hubble after its launch in April 1990, this image of Saturn is good by the standards of ground-based telescopes, but slightly blurry. This is because of the well-publicised problem with Hubble’s mirror, which did not allow images to be focused properly.

1991: Orion Nebula
Although not perfectly sharp, this early image of the Orion Nebula nevertheless shows the rich colours and structures of this bright star-forming region.

1992: Herbig-Haro 2
Throughout the region of the Orion Nebula are numerous streamers of gas that come from newborn stars, known to astronomers as Herbig-Haro Objects.

1993: Messier 100
In late 1993, Hubble’s teething problems were resolved in the first servicing mission. Before-and-after images of the core of spiral galaxy Messier 100 show how this dramatically improved the telescope’s image quality.

1994: Shoemaker-Levy 9 hits Jupiter
Soon after the astronauts repaired Hubble during the first servicing mission, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter. A similar impact on Earth 65 million years ago is thought to have killed off the dinosaurs.

1995: Eagle Nebula
Hubble’s image of the ‘pillars of creation’ in the Eagle Nebula is one of its most famous. These huge, dusty structures enshroud pockets of ongoing star formation.

1996: NGC 6826
This image from 1996 shows a planetary nebula, which represents the other extremity of a star’s life from the Eagle Nebula. Planetary nebulae form when Sun-like stars puff out their outer layers as they run low on fuel. They are so named because of their roughly spherical shape and green colour, not because of the presence of any planets.

1997: Mars
NASA’s Mars Pathfinder probe was en route to Mars in 1997 while Hubble took this image. Although Hubble cannot compete with the resolution of images taken from probes which actually fly past or land on planets, it does offer the advantage of being able to make long-term observations, useful for studying planets’ climates and weather.

1998: Ring Nebula
Another planetary nebula, the Ring Nebula is one of the most famous.

1999: Keyhole Nebula
The Keyhole Nebula, part of the larger Carina Nebula is another bright star-forming region.

2000: NGC 1999
Not all nebulae glow brightly. NGC 1999 contains a dark patch silhouetted against a brighter background which reflects starlight.

2001: ESO 510-G13
Hubble’s image of this galaxy shows the dramatic deformations that can occur after collisions between galaxies. Although the immense distance between stars makes it vanishingly unlikely for stars to actually collide with each other, the tidal forces can warp and tear galaxies out of shape.

2002: Cone Nebula
Further upgrades in 2002, including the installation of the Advanced Camera for Surveys increased resolution and picture quality again. Hubble’s ultra-sharp image of the Cone Nebula demonstrates the new instrument’s capabilities.

2003: Hubble Ultra Deep Field
Usually astronomers know what they’re going to look at when they plan their observations. For the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, observed over 11 days between September 2003 and January 2004, they did not. Pointing the telescope at an extremely dark patch of sky devoid of nearby stars, this extremely long exposure was designed to see the most distant and faintest galaxies in the Universe.

2004: Antennae Galaxies
The dramatic collision of two spiral galaxies is visible in this image of the Antennae Galaxies. The bright pink patches visible across much of the vista are pockets of star formation triggered by the gravitational interaction of the galaxies.

2005: The Orion Nebula
This image of the Orion Nebula is one of the largest and most detailed ever made.

2006: Messier 9
Globular clusters, roughly spherical collections of stars, contain some of the oldest stars in our Milky Way. Hubble’s high resolution observations allow astronomers to discern individual stars right into the centre of these clusters.

2007: NGC 4874
This image of NGC 4874, a galaxy in the Coma Cluster, was taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys just two days before it suffered an electronic failure in January 2007. For the next two years, astronomers would have to make do with lower resolution images from Hubble’s other cameras.

2008: NGC 2818
This image of planetary nebula NGC 2818 dates from this period. It is worth noting that even with its capabilities constrained, Hubble was still able to produce images that compete with any telescope on the ground.

2009: Bug Nebula
In 2009, astronauts travelled to Hubble for another servicing mission, which installed new and upgraded cameras. The Bug Nebula was one of the first images sent back: Hubble was back in business.

2010: Centaurus A
Using its new instrumentation, Hubble peered into the heart of Centaurus A, a dramatically dusty galaxy.

2011: Tarantula Nebula
Just published in April 2012, this image of the Tarantula Nebula combines a mosaic of Hubble observations, which capture the detail and structure of the nebula, with observations of glowing hydrogen and oxygen from the European Southern Observatory’s MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope in Chile, which provide colour. The image is one of the most detailed ever made of a star-forming region, weighing in at an astonishing 330 megapixels.

2012: ???
Most of Hubble’s data are only made public a year after they are made, in order to give the team who designed the observations some time to study and publish their results. And it sometimes takes a few more years before the pictures get processed and released to the public. So what’s Hubble’s best picture from 2012? You’ll just have to wait to find out...

Hubblecast 53: Hidden Treasures in Hubble's Archive

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:10:01 +0200

Over two decades in orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope has made a huge number of observations. Every week, we publish new ones on the Hubble website. But hidden in Hubble’s huge data archives are some truly breathtaking images that have hardly ever been seen by anyone.

In this episode, Dr J, aka Dr Joe Liske, explains what all this data is, what it’s for, and how you can take a look at it yourself.

If you’re want to try your hand at looking through the archive for hidden treasures, why not enter our Hidden Treasures competition (competition closes 31 May 2012). Find a great dataset and you could win an iPod Touch, try your hand at processing the image and you could win an iPad.

This Hubblecast is the first with specially composed music by Toomas Erm, head of the control engineering department at the European Southern Observatory.

Credit

ESA/Hubble

Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Web and technical support: Raquel Yumi Shida
Written by: Oli Usher
Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J)
Narration: Gaitee Hussain
Images: NASA, ESA & R. Gendler
Music: Toomas Erm
Directed by: Oli Usher
Cinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix.de), Herbert Zodet
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

Join the 2012 Hubble's Hidden Treasures Competition

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:10:00 +0200

Over two decades in orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope has made a huge number of observations. Every week, we publish new images on the ESA/Hubble website.

But hidden in Hubble’s huge data archives are still some truly breathtaking images that have never been seen in public. We call them Hubble’s Hidden Treasures — and we’re looking for your help to bring them to light.

We’re inviting the public into Hubble’s vast science archive to dig out the best unseen Hubble images. Find a great dataset in the Hubble Legacy Archive, adjust the contrast and colours using the simple online tools and submit to our Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Contest Flickr group, and you could win an iPod Touch in our Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Competition.

For an extra challenge, why not try using the same software that the professionals use to turn the Hubble data into breath-taking images? Download the data from the Hubble Legacy Archive, process using powerful open-source software such as the ESO/ESA/NASA FITS Liberator and make a beautiful image for our Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Image Processing Contest Flickr group. And you’ll be in with a chance to win an iPad.

Both parts of the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures competition close on 31 May 2012.

The best datasets that you identify will also be featured as future pictures of the week and photo releases on spacetelescope.org.

For more information, watch Hubblecast 53, and visit the Hidden Treasures webpage at www.spacetelescope.org/hiddentreasures.

Competition news will be posted on our Facebook and Twitter accounts throughout the contest.

Educational App with ESA/Hubble Content in New York Times Top 10 Best iPad Apps

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:55:50 +0100

The New York Times has included the Back in Time app developed by the company Landka among its Top 10 iPad apps in 2011. ESA/Hubble went into partnership with Landka to deliver content for this educational app, which is an animated history e-book that guides the reader through time from the first moments of the Universe’s history until the most recent events. ESA/Hubble contributed images and animations for the first four chapters: The Big Bang, The First Stars, The Milky Way and The Solar System.

According to The New York Times: “The coolest history textbook you’ll find on the iPad, Back in Time tells the story of the Universe using a 24-hour clock, where the Big Bang starts the day and humans appear in the final seconds.”

An intuitive interface allows the user to scroll quickly through time, entering any major event in the history of our civilisation. Each event is documented with social and historical context, images, a timeline and a section devoted to little-known, but interesting facts. The nomination text recommends that, “The text is best suited to older children and adults, but it makes for great browsing for younger children too, and the subtly moving graphics provide a compelling backdrop.”

Supported in five different languages, the application is available worldwide on Apple’s App Store. A trailer for the app is available here.

Those who wish to access the best astronomical images from ESA/Hubble, can also download the free app Hubble Top 100 Images.

Hubblecast 52: The Death of Stars

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:05:00 +0100

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is famous for looking deep into the past of the Universe. But it can also predict the future. This episode of the Hubblecast takes us on a journey five billion years from now, to see the ultimate fate of the Solar System.

Using stunning Hubble imagery of the death throes of Sun-like stars, narrator Joe Liske (aka Dr J) shows us what will happen when the Sun runs out of nuclear fuel — and how its wreckage will form the building blocks of new generations of stars.

Credit

ESA/Hubble

Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida
Written by: Oli Usher
Narration: Joe Liske (Dr J)
Images: NASA, ESA
Animations: Martin Kornmesser
Music: Zero Project
Directed by: Oli Usher
Executive Producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

Hubblecast 51: Star-forming region S 106

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:00 +0100

In this episode of the Hubblecast, we take a tour of the compact star-forming region Sh 2-106. Its hourglass shape is caused by the final, violent phases of a star’s formation in the middle of the gaseous nebula. This episode explains some of the science behind Hubble’s observations and brings them to life with detailed 3D computer visualisations.

Credit

ESA/Hubble
Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida
Written by: Oli Usher and Bárbara Ferreira
Narration: Joe Liske (Dr J)
Images: NASA, ESA
Animations: Greg Bacon (STScI), Martin Kornmesser (ESA/Hubble)
Music: Zero Project
Directed by: Oli Usher
Executive Producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

Hubble's 10 000th scientific paper published

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:00:00 +0100

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has passed another milestone in its almost 21 years of observations: the publication of the 10 000th refereed scientific paper based on Hubble data.

Alvaro Gimenez, Director of Science and Robotic Exploration for the European Space Agency said: “Reaching the milestone of the 10 000th scientific paper reminds us that Hubble is one of the most successful scientific endeavours in history. European scientists have played a big part in this, and have been been intimately involved with Hubble since before the telescope’s launch. Thanks to ESA’s partnership with NASA, Europe’s astronomers have made major contributions to our understanding of the Universe.”

European scientists are guaranteed at least 15% of the observing time on Hubble under the terms of ESA’s participation in this international project. Over the years, scientists in over 35 countries have engaged in Hubble research. The United States are responsible for the most papers published based on Hubble observations, followed by five ESA member countries: the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and Spain.

The lead author of the 10 000th paper is Zach Cano of Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom. He reports on the identification of the faintest ever supernova to be associated with a long-duration gamma ray burst, a type of outburst of high-energy radiation that follows the death of a star.

Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has been serviced five times by astronauts, most recently in 2009. With recently overhauled equipment and a suite of new instruments, Hubble is now at the height of its powers, and is expected to continue operations into the second half of this decade at least.

Hubble’s successor, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope is currently under construction and will launch later this decade.

Notes

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

Unique Hubble Laser Exhibit in New York City

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:15:00 +0100

From the Distant Past, a laser art installation by German conceptual artist Tim Otto Roth, is now on public display in New York City, USA. Two green scanning lasers project spectra from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope onto the sphere of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History.

The spectra look like representations of brainwaves or heartbeats on a medical monitor, or the latest stock exchange data as they scroll around the planetarium’s dome. But in fact, they chart the colours and chemical composition of distant galaxies and quasars observed by Hubble. Some of these observations are of galaxies so distant that their light has taken many billions of years to reach us. “So the green laser waves represent some of the oldest colours in the Universe,” Roth explains.

From the Distant Past, which was previously exhibited in Venice, Italy and Baltimore, USA, was created by Tim Otto Roth in collaboration with astronomer Bob Fosbury, former head of the Space Telescope–European Coordinating Facility.

The laser display will be shown from 17:00–23:00 every evening until 27 November 2011, on the dome of New York City’s Hayden Planetarium, on West 81st Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue.

Hubblecast "highly commended" in MEDEA awards

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 10:45:00 +0100

The Hubblecast has been highly commended in the 2011 MEDEA awards. An international panel of educational and media experts judged that the Hubblecast was among the best entries in this European competition that recognises innovation and good practice in the use of media in education.

There were 115 entries from 28 countries. Nine finalists were chosen, with a further 13 — including the Hubblecast — highly commended by the jury.

The Hubblecast’s Dr J (aka Dr Joe Liske) is no stranger to the MEDEA awards. In 2009, Eyes on the Skies, an hour-long documentary presented by Dr J won the Special Jury Award at the MEDEA Awards. Eyes on the Skies celebrates the 400th anniversary of the invention of the telescope and the International Year of Astronomy.

The MEDEA Awards are supported by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission through the MEDEA2020 project.

Hubblecast 50: Q&A with Dr J

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:00:00 +0200

In episode 49 of the Hubblecast, Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) asked viewers to send in their questions about astronomy and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. In episode 50, Dr J picks his favourite few questions from the hundreds that were sent in.

Credits

ESA/Hubble
Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida
Written by: Oli Usher
Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J)
Images: NASA, ESA
Music: movetwo and zero-project
Directed by: Oli Usher
Cinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix.de)
Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen