Hubble News

Photo Release: Classic Portrait of a Barred Spiral Galaxy

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0100

Hubble image of NGC 1073The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, which is found in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is a similar barred spiral, and the study of galaxies such as NGC 1073 helps astronomers learn more about our celestial home.

Science Release: Hubble Pinpoints Furthest Protocluster of Galaxies Ever Seen

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0100

Hubble Spies Building Blocks of Most Distant Galaxy ClusterUsing the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have uncovered a cluster of galaxies in the initial stages of development, making it the most distant such grouping ever observed in the early Universe.

Photo Release: Young star rebels against its parent cloud

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

Hubble view of star-forming region S106Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 has captured this image of a giant cloud of hydrogen gas illuminated by a bright young star. The image shows how violent the end stages of the star-formation process can be, with the young object shaking up its stellar nursery.

Science Release: Hubble Uncovers Tiny Galaxies Bursting with Starbirth in Early Universe

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0100

Tiny galaxies brimming with star birthUsing its infrared vision to peer nine billion years back in time, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered an extraordinary population of tiny, young galaxies that are brimming with star formation.

Science Release: Hubble Directly Observes the Disc Around a Black Hole

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 10:00:00 +0100

Gravitationally lensed quasar HE 1104-1805A team of scientists has used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to observe a quasar accretion disc — a brightly glowing disc of matter that is slowly being sucked into its galaxy’s central black hole. Their study makes use of a novel technique that uses gravitational lensing to give an immense boost to the power of the telescope. The incredible precision of the method has allowed astronomers to directly measure the disc’s size and plot the temperature across different parts of the disc.

Photo Release: Hubble Survey Carries Out a Dark Matter Census

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:00:00 +0200

Hubble image of galaxy cluster MACS J1206The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been used to make an image of galaxy cluster MACS J1206.2-0847. The apparently distorted shapes of distant galaxies in the background is caused by an invisible substance called dark matter, whose gravity bends and distorts their light rays. MACS 1206 has been observed as part of a new survey of galaxy clusters using Hubble.

Photo Release: Galaxy Caught Blowing Bubbles

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:30:00 +0200

Hubble image of irregular galaxy Holmberg IIHubble’s famous images of galaxies typically show elegant spirals or soft-edged ellipses. But these neat forms are only representative of large galaxies. Smaller galaxies like the dwarf irregular galaxy Holmberg II come in many shapes and types that are harder to classify. This galaxy’s indistinct shape is punctuated by huge glowing bubbles of gas, captured in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Science Release: Hubble Movies Provide Unprecedented View of Supersonic Jets from Young Stars

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 15:00:00 +0200

Stellar jets HH 47, HH 34 and HH 2Astronomers have combined two decades of Hubble observations to make unprecedented movies revealing never-before-seen details of the birth pangs of new stars. This sheds new light on how stars like the Sun form.

Photo Release: Four Unusual Views of the Andromeda Galaxy

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0200

Stars in the Andromeda Galaxy’s discThe Andromeda Galaxy is revealed in unprecedented detail in four archive observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. They show stars and structure in the galaxy’s disc, the halo of stars that surrounds it, and a stream of stars left by a companion galaxy as it was torn apart and pulled in by the galaxy’s gravitational forces.

Science Release: Pandora’s Cluster — A Galactic Crash Investigation

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:00:00 +0200

X-rays, dark matter and galaxies in cluster Abell 2744A team of scientists has studied the galaxy cluster Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora’s Cluster. They have pieced together the cluster’s complex and violent history using telescopes in space and on the ground, including the Hubble Space Telescope and ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Abell 2744 seems to be the result of a simultaneous pile-up of at least four separate galaxy clusters and this complex collision has produced strange effects that have never been seen together before.