BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Hubble Space Telescope - 27th birthday Aptil 2017

Antonio Scortica, inspired by Hubble, produced the painting "SuperNova".

Is this cool or what? It's MACS J0717.5+3745, located 5.4 billion light years away in the constellation Auriga. This isn't a very glamorous name - and not much of a clue what we're seeing. A cluster of galaxies would be interesting enough, but this is four galaxy clusters colliding!

The image combines data from three different telescopes. Credit Hubble with the galaxies and stars. The diffuse emission in blue is emitted by gas heated to millions of degrees - this was from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The diffuse emission in pink is data from the Jansky Very Large Array which shows radio emission from giant shock waves triggered by the merger.

I wonder if any of the bird constellations would fancy a Cosmic Caterpillar for breakfast. That's the nickname of IRAS 20324+4057 which is a protostar, a cosmic cloud that is contracting to make a new star. It's located about 4500 light years away in the constellation Cygnus the Swan.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and IPHAS

NGC 7635 looks like a giant soap bubble, but it's actually a nebula nicknamed the Bubble Nebula. A brilliant star illuminates a cloud of gas and dust. It was discovered in 1787 by William Herschel and is about 8000 light years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. The pressure from the stellar winds of star SAO 20575, which is 10-20 times the mass of the Sun, forces the material around it into this bubble form.

Image: Hubble Space Telescope

On Hubble's 20th anniversary there was a Google doodle in its honor. It showed up all around the world for anyone who did a Google search.

Today marks the 26th anniversary of Hubble's deployment. In my last post I included a link to the birthday picture, the beautiful Bubble Nebula.

Look as this wonderful image of M106, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici.

This image combines Hubble observations of M 106 with additional information captured by amateur astronomers Robert Gendler and Jay GaBany. Gendler combined Hubble data with his own observations to produce this stunning colour image.

Credit:
NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and R. Gendler (for the Hubble Heritage Team). Acknowledgment: J. GaBany

Here's the splendid spiral galaxy NGC 4394. It's about 55 million light years away in the constellation Coma Berenices, and is probably part of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. William Herschel discovered it in 1784 – I think he'd be amazed and delighted if he could see this beautiful Hubble detail, instead of just as a fuzzy blob.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA 

Happy Birthday to the Hubble!
Thank you for the pictures you post, Mona.

I'm in awe of artistic people. Here's an artistic view of the night sky by Holly Romey who was inspired by a Hubble picture.

"Our Universe" - a fun picture by artist HHcita, once again inspired by Hubble.