Pictures From the Hubble Space Telescope
Carina Nebula: Star Birth in the Extreme
This is one of the largest panoramic Hubble images ever taken, a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth and death is taking place. The nebula contains at least 12 brilliant stars that are estimated to be at least 50 to 100 times the mass of our sun. The most unique and opulent inhabitant is the star Eta Carinae, at far left. This image was released April 24, 2007 for Hubble's 17th anniversary. -- Learn More
The Colorful Demise of a Sun-Like Star
This is the colorful last hurrah of a star like our sun. The star is ending its life by casting off its outer layers of gas, which formed a cocoon around the star's remaining core. Ultraviolet light from the dying star makes the material glow. The burned-out star, called a white dwarf, is the white dot in the center. Our sun will eventually burn out and shroud itself with stellar debris like this, but not for another 5 billion years. -- Learn More
Infant Stars in a Nearby Galaxy
Released Jan 8, 2007, this photo shows bright blue newly formed stars that are blowing a cavity in the center of a star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a nearby galaxy. The radiation blazing out from the hot stars is eroding the nebula from the inside. The Small Magellanic Cloud is 200,000 light-years from Earth. Its proximity makes it an exceptional laboratory to perform in-depth studies of how stars form and evolve.-- Learn More
Heavyweight Star Loses Some Mass
The brightest object in the picture is named Pismis 24-1, part of a star cluster in Sagittarius. It was once thought to be the most massive known star in the galaxy, weighing some 200 to 300 solar masses, far above the currently believed limit of about 150 solar masses for single stars. However, new Hubble high-resolution images of the star show that it is really two stars orbiting one another. Each is about 100 solar masses.-- Learn More
Watching a Light Echo
Released Oct. 26, these images show an unusual phenomenon called a light echo. Light from V838 Monocerotis, a star that erupted nearly five years ago, moves outward through a cloud of dust surrounding the star. The light reflects or "echoes" off the dust and travels to Earth. Because of the extra distance the scattered light travels, it reaches Earth after the light from the outburst itself. Each new image of the echo reveals a new, unique "thin-section" through the dust.
The Sharpest View of the Orion Nebula
This dramatic image offers a peek inside a cavern of roiling dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming. The image represents the sharpest view ever taken of this region, called the Orion Nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. These stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon.
Whirlpool Galaxy
This picture was released April 25, 2005 for the Hubble 15th anniversary. At that point, the Hubble Space Telescope had taken more than 700,000 images of the comos. This image is one of the sharpest images Hubble has ever produced, taken with the newest camera.
Looking Back in Time
This composite photo is the deepest view of the universe ever achieved. It reveals galaxies from the time shortly after the big bang, which occurred about 14 billion years ago.
Psychedelic Jupiter
Like a case of cosmic measles, five spots appear across Jupiter's upper half: one white, one blue and three black. These spots are actually a rare alignment of three of Jupiter's moons, Io, Ganymede and Callisto. The telltale signs are the moons' shadows. Io's is just above center and to the left; Ganymede's is on the left edge; and Callisto's is near the right edge. Two of the moons are also visible: Io is the white circle at center and Ganymede is the blue circle at upper right. Callisto is out of the image to the right.
Swan Nebula
Radiation from nearby stars sculpts a roiling wave of gas and dust-a section of the Swan Nebula roughly three light-years across. Hubble's penetrating vision has helped explain how stars are born in such complex regions and has also provided a clearer view of how stars evolve.
Sombrero Galaxy
This is one of the universe's most photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero Galaxy (M104). Its hallmark is a brilliant white, bulbous core encircled by the thick dust lanes comprising the spiral structure of the galaxy. As seen from Earth, the galaxy is tilted nearly edge-on. M104 is just beyond the limit of naked-eye visibility and is easily seen through small telescopes. The Sombrero lies at the southern edge of the rich Virgo cluster of galaxies.
Crab Nebula
The Crab Nebula is a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers witnessed this violent event in 1054. This Hubble image, released Dec. 1, 2005, gives the most detailed view so far of the entire Crab Nebula. The Crab is arguably the single most interesting object, as well as one of the most studied, in all of astronomy.
Boomerang Nebula
The Hubble Space Telescope has "caught" the Boomerang Nebula, which is a reflecting cloud of dust and gas some 5,000 light years from Earth. The nebula has two nearly symmetric lobes of matter that are being ejected from a central star; its name comes from this symmetric structure. Hubble's sharp view resolves patterns and ripples in the nebula close to the star that are not visible from the ground.
A Pinwheel Galaxy
Looking like a child's pinwheel ready to be set spinning by the breeze, this dramatic spiral galaxy -- labeled NGC 1309 -- is 100 million light-years from Earth. Hubble helps to accurately measure these distances and thus calculate the expansion rate of the universe. Bright blue areas of star formation pepper the spiral arms of this galaxy, while ruddy dust lanes follow the spiral structure into a yellowish central nucleus of older-population stars.
Pluto and Its Moons
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed the presence of two new moons around the distant dwarf planet Pluto. The moons were first discovered by Hubble in May 2005; this image was released Feb. 22, 2006. In the photo, Pluto is in the center and Charon is just below it. The moons are named, from far right, Hydra and Nix, respectively.
Eskimo Nebula
In its first image following the successful December 1999 servicing mission, the Hubble Space Telescope captured a majestic view of a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a dying, sun-like star. This stellar relic is nicknamed the Eskimo Nebula because, when viewed through ground-based telescopes, it resembles a face surrounded by a fur parka. William Herschel first spied it in 1787.
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