HUBBLE’S TOP 30 IMAGES
Econet, 8th May 2021,
The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope
that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was
not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versatile,
renowned both as a vital research tool and as a public relations boon for
astronomy.
Hubble has peered back into our universe’s
distant past, to locations more than 13.4 billion light-years from Earth,
capturing galaxies merging, probing the super massive black holes that lurk in
their depths, and helping us better understand the history of the expanding
universe.
In its over 30 years of operation, Hubble has
made observations that have captured humanity’s imaginations and deepened our
knowledge of the cosmos. It will continue to do so for years to come.Here
we present the Hubble Top 100 list. It has been compiled, and is regularly
reviewed, by staff of ESA/Hubble.
“No matter what Hubble reveals — planets,
dense star fields, colorful interstellar nebulae, deadly black holes, graceful colliding
galaxies, the large-scale structure of the Universe — each image
establishes your own private vista on the cosmos.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Director of Hayden Planetarium
American Museum of Natural History
New York, New York
1. PILLARS OF
CREATION (NEW VIEW)
 |
Credits: NASA |
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has
revisited one of its most iconic and popular images: the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars
of Creation. This image shows the pillars as seen in visible light, capturing
the multi-coloured glow of gas clouds, wispy tendrils of dark cosmic dust, and
the rust-coloured elephants’ trunks of the nebula’s famous pillars.
The dust and gas in the pillars is seared by the intense
radiation from young stars and eroded by strong winds from massive nearby
stars. With these new images comes better contrast and a clearer view for
astronomers to study how the structure of the pillars is changing over time.
2. A ROSE MADE OF GALAXIES
 |
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble
Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) |
The larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC
1810, has a disk that is tidally distorted into a rose-like shape by the
gravitational tidal pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813. A
swath of blue jewels across the top is the combined light from clusters of
intensely bright and hot young blue stars. These massive stars glow fiercely in
ultraviolet light.
The smaller, nearly edge-on companion shows
distinct signs of intense star formation at its nucleus, perhaps triggered by
the encounter with the companion galaxy.
A series of uncommon
spiral patterns in the large galaxy is a tell-tale sign of interaction. The
large, outer arm appears partially as a ring, a feature seen when interacting
galaxies actually pass through one another. This suggests that the smaller
companion actually dived deep, but off-center, through UGC 1810. The inner set
of spiral arms is highly warped out of the plane with one of the arms going
behind the bulge and coming back out the other side. How these two spiral
patterns connect is still not precisely known.
The interaction was imaged on Dec. 17, 2010, with
Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).
3. EXTREME STAR CLUSTER BURSTS
INTO LIFE
 |
| Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage The Star-forming region NGC 3603 - seen here in this Hubble image -contains one of the most impressive young star clusters in the milky way. Bathed in gas and dust the cluster formed in a huge rush of star formation thought to have occurred around a million years ago. The hot blue stars at the core are responsible for carving out a huge cavity in the gas seen to the right of the star cluster in NGC 3603's center. |
4. ANTENNAE
GALAXIES RELOADED
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Hubble has snapped the best ever image of the
Antennae Galaxies. Hubble has released images of these stunning galaxies twice
before, once using observations from its Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2
(WFPC2) in 1997, and again in 2006 from the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
Each of Hubble’s images of the Antennae Galaxies has been better than the last,
due to upgrades made during the famous servicing missions, the last of which
took place in 2009.
The galaxies — also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 — are locked in a deadly embrace. Once normal, sedate spiral galaxies like the Milky Way, the pair have spent the past few hundred million years sparring with one another. This clash is so violent that stars have been ripped from their host galaxies to form a streaming arc between the two. In wide-field images of the pair the reason for their name becomes clear — far-flung stars and streamers of gas stretch out into space, creating long tidal tails reminiscent of antennae.
This new image of the Antennae Galaxies shows obvious signs of chaos. Clouds of gas are seen in bright pink and red, surrounding the bright flashes of blue star-forming regions — some of which are partially obscured by dark patches of dust. The rate of star formation is so high that the Antennae Galaxies are said to be in a state of starburst, a period in which all of the gas within the galaxies is being used to form stars. This cannot last forever and neither can the separate galaxies; eventually the nuclei will coalesce, and the galaxies will begin their retirement together as one large elliptical galaxy.
5. (HORSEHEAD NEBULA (NEW
INFRARED VIEW)
 |
| Credit: NASA, ESA, |
The Horsehead Nebula (also known as Barnard 33) is a small dark nebula in the constellation Orion. The nebula is located just to the south of Alnitak, the easternmost star of Orion's Belt, and is part of the much larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. It appears within the southern region of the dense dust cloud known as Lynds 1630, along the edge of the much larger, active star-forming H II region called IC 434.
The dark cloud of dust and gas is a region in the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex where star formation is taking place. It is located in the constellation of Orion, which is prominent in the winter evening sky in the Northern Hemisphere and the summer evening sky in the Southern Hemisphere. The Horsehead Nebula is approximately 422 parsecs or 1,375 light-years from Earth. It is one of the most identifiable nebulae because of its resemblance to a horse's head.
6. MAGNETIC MONSTER NGC 1275
 |
Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage
Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble |
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found an answer
to a long-standing puzzle by resolving giant but delicate filaments shaped by a
strong magnetic field around the active galaxy NGC 1275. It is the most
striking example of the influence of the immense tentacles of extra galactic magnetic fields, say researchers.
One of the closest giant elliptical galaxies, NGC
1275 hosts a supermassive black hole. Gas swirls near the black hole blowing
bubbles of material into the surrounding galaxy cluster. Long gaseous filaments
stretch out beyond the galaxy, into the multi-million-degree, X-ray-emitting gas
that fills the cluster.
These filaments are the only visible-light
manifestation of the intricate relationship between the central black hole and
the surrounding cluster gas. They provide important clues about how giant black
holes affect their surrounding environment.
Exploiting Hubble's view, a team of astronomers
led by Andy Fabian from the University of Cambridge, UK, have for the first
time resolved individual threads of gas that make up the filaments. The amount
of gas contained in a typical thread is around one million times the mass of
our own Sun. They are only 200 light-years wide, are often very straight, and
extend for up to 20,000 light-years. The filaments form when cold gas from the
core of the galaxy is dragged out in the wake of the rising bubbles blown by
the black hole.
The filaments seen here can be a gaping 200 000 light-years long. The entire image is approximately 260 000 light-years across.
7. HUBBLE ULTRA DEEP FIELD IS FILLED
 |
Credit: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team
STScI/AURA) |
The snapshot includes galaxies of various ages, sizes,
shapes, and colours. The smallest, reddest galaxies, about 100, may be among
the most distant known, existing when the universe was just 800 million years
old. The nearest galaxies – the larger, brighter, well-defined spirals and
ellipticals – thrived about 1 billion years ago, when the cosmos was 13 billion
years old.
In vibrant contrast to the rich harvest of classic spiral and
elliptical galaxies, there is a zoo of oddball galaxies littering the field.
Some look like toothpicks; others like links on a bracelet. A few appear to be
interacting. These oddball galaxies chronicle a period when the universe was
younger and more chaotic.
In ground-based photographs, the patch of sky in which the galaxies reside (just one-tenth the diameter of the full Moon) is largely empty. Located in the constellation Fornax, the region is so empty that only a handful of stars within the Milky Way galaxy can be seen in the image.The image required 800 exposures taken over the course of 400 Hubble orbits around Earth. The total amount of exposure time was 11.3 days, taken between Sept. 24, 2003 and Jan. 16, 2004.
8. HUBBLE MOSAIC OF THE MAJESTIC SOMBRERO GALAXY
 |
| Credit: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA) |
Hubble has trained its razor-sharp eye on one of the universe’s
most stately and photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero galaxy, Messier 104 (M104).
The galaxy’s 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. We view it from just six degrees north of
its equatorial plane. This brilliant galaxy was named the Sombrero because of
its resemblance to the broad rim and high-topped Mexican hat.
At a relatively bright magnitude of +8, 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 and is
one of the most massive objects in that group, equivalent to 800 billion suns.
The galaxy is 50,000 light-years across and is located 28 million light-years
from Earth.
9. NEW STARS SHED LIGHT ON THE PAST
Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble
This image depicts bright blue newly formed stars that are blowing a cavity in the centre of a fascinating star-forming region known as N90.
The high energy radiation blazing out from the hot young stars
in N90 is eroding the outer portions of the nebula from the inside, as the
diffuse outer reaches of the nebula prevent the energetic outflows from
streaming away from the cluster directly. Because N90 is located far from the
central body of the Small Magellanic Cloud, numerous background galaxies in
this picture can be seen, delivering a grand backdrop for the stellar
newcomers. The dust in the region gives these distant galaxies a reddish-brown
tint.
10. MOST DETAILED IMAGE OF THE CRAB NEBULA
 |
Credits: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) |
This Hubble mosaic is one of the largest images ever taken of a
supernova remnant by the space telescope. It is also the highest resolution
image ever made of the entire Crab Nebula, which is located 6,500 light-years
away. The composite was assembled from 24 individual exposures taken with
Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in October 1999, January 2000, and
December 2000.
The orange filaments are the tattered remains of the star and
consist mostly of hydrogen. The rapidly spinning neutron star embedded in the
center of the nebula is the dynamo powering the nebula's eerie interior bluish
glow. The blue light comes from electrons whirling at nearly the speed of light
around magnetic field lines from the neutron star, which is the crushed,
ultra-dense core of the exploded star.
Like a lighthouse, the neutron star produces twin beams of
radiation. From Earth, it appears to pulse 30 times a second due to the neutron
star's rotation sweeping the beams across our line of sight. It has the mass
equivalent to the Sun crammed into a rapidly spinning ball of neutrons 12 miles
across.
11. BUTTERFLY EMERGES FROM
STELLAR DEMISE IN PLANETARY NEBULA
 |
This celestial object looks like a delicate butterfly. But it is
far from serene.
What resemble dainty butterfly wings are actually roiling
cauldrons of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The gas is
tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour – fast enough to travel
from Earth to the Moon in 24 minutes!
A dying star that was once about five times the mass of the Sun
is at the center of this fury. It has ejected its envelope of gases and is now
unleashing a stream of ultraviolet radiation that is making the cast-off
material glow. This object is an example of a planetary nebula, so-named
because many of them have a round appearance resembling that of a planet when
viewed through a small telescope.
The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space
Telescope, snapped this image of the planetary nebula, catalogued as NGC 6302,
but more popularly called the Bug Nebula or the Butterfly Nebula.
NGC 6302 lies within our Milky Way galaxy, roughly 3800
light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius. The glowing gas is the
star’s outer layers, expelled over about 2200 years. The “butterfly” stretches
for more than two light-years, which is about half the distance from the Sun to
the nearest star, Proxima Centauri.
12. HUBBLE’S SHARPEST VIEW OF THE ORION NEBULA
 |
Credits: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team |
This dramatic image offers a peek inside a cavern of roiling
dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming. The image, taken by the
Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope,
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.
The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from the
massive, young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas
that may be the homes of budding stars. The bright central region is the home
of the four heftiest stars in the nebula. The stars are called the Trapezium
because they are arranged in a trapezoid pattern. Ultraviolet light unleashed
by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of
hundreds of smaller stars. Located near the Trapezium stars are stars still
young enough to have disks of material encircling them. These disks are called
protoplanetary disks or "proplyds" and are too small to see clearly
in this image. The disks are the building blocks of solar systems.
The bright glow at upper left is from M43, a small region being
shaped by a massive, young star's ultraviolet light. Astronomers call the
region a miniature Orion Nebula because only one star is sculpting the
landscape. The Orion Nebula has four such stars. Next to M43 are dense, dark
pillars of dust and gas that point toward the Trapezium. These pillars are
resisting erosion from the Trapezium's intense ultraviolet light. The glowing
region on the right reveals arcs and bubbles formed when stellar winds -
streams of charged particles ejected from the Trapezium stars - collide with
material.
The Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years away, the nearest
star-forming region to Earth. Astronomers used 520 Hubble images, taken in five
colors, to make this picture. They also added ground-based photos to fill out
the nebula. The ACS mosaic covers approximately the apparent angular size of
the full moon.
The Orion observations were taken between 2004 and 2005.
13. YOUNG STARS SCULPT GAS WITH POWERFUL OUTFLOWS
 |
|
This Hubble Space Telescope view shows one of the most dynamic and intricately detailed star-forming regions in space, located 210,000 light-years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. At the centre of the region is a brilliant star cluster called NGC 346. A dramatic structure of arched, ragged filaments with a distinct ridge surrounds the cluster. |
A torrent of radiation from the hot stars in the cluster NGC 346, at the centre
of this Hubble image, eats into denser areas around it, creating a fantasy
sculpture of dust and gas. The dark, intricately beaded edge of the ridge, seen
in silhouette, is particularly dramatic. It contains several small dust
globules that point back towards the central cluster, like windsocks caught in
a gale.
14. OUT OF THIS WHIRL: WHIRLPOOL
GALAXY (M51) AND COMPANION GALAXY
Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI), and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA)
The graceful, winding arms of the majestic spiral galaxy M51
(NGC 5194) appear like a grand spiral staircase sweeping through space. They
are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust.
This sharpest-ever image of the Whirlpool Galaxy, taken in
January 2005 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space
Telescope, illustrates a spiral galaxy's grand design, from its curving spiral
arms, where young stars reside, to its yellowish central core, a home of older
stars. The galaxy is nicknamed the Whirlpool because of its swirling structure.
The Whirlpool's most striking feature is its two curving arms, a
hallmark of so-called grand-design spiral galaxies. Many spiral galaxies
possess numerous, loosely shaped arms which make their spiral structure less
pronounced. These arms serve an important purpose in spiral galaxies. They are
star-formation factories, compressing hydrogen gas and creating clusters of new
stars. In the Whirlpool, the assembly line begins with the dark clouds of gas
on the inner edge, then moves to bright pink star-forming regions, and ends
with the brilliant blue star clusters along the outer edge.
Some astronomers believe that the Whirlpool's arms are so
prominent because of the effects of a close encounter with NGC 5195, the small,
yellowish galaxy at the outermost tip of one of the Whirlpool's arms. At first
glance, the compact galaxy appears to be tugging on the arm. Hubble's clear
view, however, shows that NGC 5195 is passing behind the Whirlpool. The small
galaxy has been gliding past the Whirlpool for hundreds of millions of years.
As NGC 5195 drifts by, its gravitational muscle pumps up waves
within the Whirlpool's pancake-shaped disk. The waves are like ripples in a
pond generated when a rock is thrown in the water. When the waves pass through
orbiting gas clouds within the disk, they squeeze the gaseous material along
each arm's inner edge. The dark dusty material looks like gathering storm
clouds. These dense clouds collapse, creating a wake of star birth, as seen in
the bright pink star-forming regions. The largest stars eventually sweep away
the dusty cocoons with a torrent of radiation, hurricane-like stellar winds,
and shock waves from supernova blasts. Bright blue star clusters emerge from
the mayhem, illuminating the Whirlpool's arms like city streetlights.
The Whirlpool is one of astronomy's galactic darlings. Located
31 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting
Dogs), the Whirlpool's beautiful face-on view and closeness to Earth allow
astronomers to study a classic spiral galaxy's structure and star-forming
processes.
15. STELLAR SPIRE IN THE EAGLE
NEBULA
 |
Credits: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage
Team (STScI/AURA) |
The Eagle Nebula is a billowing tower of cold gas and dust
rising from a stellar nursery. The soaring tower is 9.5 light-years or about 90
trillion kilometers high, about twice the distance from our Sun to the next
nearest star.
Stars in the Eagle Nebula are born in clouds of cold hydrogen
gas that reside in chaotic neighborhoods, where energy from young stars sculpts
fantasy-like landscapes in the gas. The tower may be a giant incubator for
those newborn stars. A torrent of ultraviolet light from a band of massive,
hot, young stars [off the top of the image] is eroding the pillar.
The starlight also is responsible for illuminating the tower’s
rough surface. Ghostly streamers of gas can be seen boiling off this surface, creating
the haze around the structure and highlighting its three-dimensional shape. The
column is silhouetted against the background glow of more distant gas.
Inside the gaseous tower, stars may be forming. Some of those
stars may have been created by dense gas collapsing under gravity. Other stars
may be forming due to pressure from gas that has been heated by the neighboring
hot stars.
The bumps and fingers of material in the center of the tower are
examples of these stellar birthing areas. These regions may look small but they
are roughly the size of our solar system.
The dominant colors in the image were produced by gas energized
by the star cluster’s powerful ultraviolet light. The blue colors at the top
are from glowing oxygen. The red color in the lower region is from glowing
hydrogen. The Eagle Nebula image was taken in November 2004 with the ACS aboard
Hubble.
16. COSMIC DUST BUNNIES
 |
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) |
Like dust bunnies that lurk in corners and under beds,
surprisingly complex loops and blobs of cosmic dust lie hidden in the giant
elliptical galaxy NGC 1316. This image made from data obtained with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals the dust
lanes and star clusters of this giant galaxy that give evidence that it was
formed from a past merger of two gas-rich galaxies.
17. LIGHT CONTINUES TO ECHO THREE YEARS AFTER STELLAR OUTBURST
 |
| Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) |
This Hubble image of the star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon)
reveals dramatic changes in the illumination of surrounding dusty cloud
structures. The effect, called a light echo, has been unveiling
never-before-seen dust patterns ever since the star suddenly brightened for
several weeks in early 2002.
18. BEAUTIFUL BARRED SPIRAL GALAXY NGC 1300
 |
Credit: Hubble Heritage Team, ESA, NASA |
Big, beautiful, barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300 lies some 70
million light-years away on the banks of the constellation Eridanus. This
Hubble Space Telescope composite view of the gorgeous island universe is one of
the largest Hubble images ever made of a complete galaxy. NGC 1300 spans over
100,000 light-years and the Hubble image reveals striking details of the
galaxy's dominant central bar and majestic spiral arms. In fact, on close
inspection the nucleus of this classic barred spiral itself shows a remarkable
region of spiral structure about 3,000 light-years across. Like other spiral
galaxies, including our own Milky Way, NGC 1300 is thought to have a
supermassive central black hole.
19. A RUNAWAY GALAXY
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| Credit: NASA, Holland Ford (JHU), the ACS Science Team and ESA |
Against a stunning backdrop of thousands of galaxies, this odd-looking galaxy with the long streamer of stars appears to be racing through space, like a runaway pinwheel firework. Galaxy UGC 10214’s distorted shape was caused by a small interloper, a very blue, compact, galaxy visible in the upper left corner of the more massive Tadpole. The Tadpole resides about 420 million light-years away in the constellation Draco.
Numerous young blue stars and star clusters, spawned by the
galaxy collision, are seen in the spiral arms, as well as in the long ‘tidal’
tail of stars. Each of these clusters represents the formation of up to about a
million stars. Two prominent clumps of young bright blue stars are visible in
the tidal tale and separated by a gap. These clumps of stars will likely become
dwarf galaxies that orbit in the Tadpole’s halo.
Behind the galactic carnage and torrent of star birth is another
compelling picture: a ‘wallpaper pattern’ of about 3000 faint galaxies. The
camera’s vision is so sharp that astronomers can identify distant colliding
galaxies, the ‘building blocks’ of galaxies, an exquisite ‘Whitman’s Sampler’
of normal galaxies, and presumably extremely faraway galaxies.
20. A DEEP LOOK AT TWO MERGING GALAXIES
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| Credit: NASA, Holland Ford (JHU), the ACS Science Team and ESA |
The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard Hubble captured a
spectacular pair of galaxies engaged in a celestial dance of cat and mouse or,
in this case, mouse and mouse.
Located 300 million light-years away in the constellation Coma
Berenices, the colliding galaxies have been nicknamed “The Mice” because of the
long tails of stars and gas emanating from each galaxy. Otherwise known as NGC
4676, the pair will eventually merge into a single giant galaxy.
21. GHOSTLY STAR-FORMING PILLAR OF GAS AND DUST
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Credit: NASA, Holland Ford (JHU),
the ACS Science Team and ESA |
22. RED SPIDER NEBULA
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| Credit: ESA & Garrelt Mellema (Leiden University, the Netherlands) |
Huge waves are sculpted in this two-lobed nebula some 3000 light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius. This warm planetary nebula harbours one of the hottest stars known and its powerful stellar winds generate waves 100 billion kilometres high. The waves are caused by supersonic shocks, formed when the local gas is compressed and heated in front of the rapidly expanding lobes. The atoms caught in the shock emit the spectacular radiation seen in this image.
23. LIGHT AND SHADOW IN THE CARINA NEBULA
 |
Credit: NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team and Nolan R. Walborn
(STScI), Rodolfo H. Barba' (La Plata Observatory, Argentina), and Adeline
Caulet (France). |
Previously unseen details of a mysterious, complex structure
within the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) are revealed by this image obtained by
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The picture is a montage assembled from four
different April 1999 telescope pointings with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary
Camera 2, which used six different color filters.
This region, about 8,000 light-years from Earth,
is located adjacent to the famous explosive variable star Eta Carinae, which
lies just outside the field of view toward the upper right. The high resolution
of the Hubble images reveals the relative three- dimensional locations of many
of these features, as well as showing numerous small dark globules that may be
in the process of collapsing to form new stars. Two striking large, sharp-edged
dust clouds are located near the bottom center and upper left edges of the
image. The former is immersed within the ring and the latter is just outside
the ring. The pronounced pillars and knobs of the upper left cloud appear to
point toward a luminous, massive star located just outside the field further
toward the upper left, which may be responsible for illuminating and sculpting
them by means of its high-energy radiation and stellar wind of high-velocity
ejected material.
These large dark clouds may eventually evaporate,
or if there are sufficiently dense condensations within them, give birth to
small star clusters. The Carina Nebula, with an overall diameter of more than
200 light- years, is one of the outstanding features of the Southern Hemisphere
portion of the Milky Way. The diameter of the Keyhole ring structure shown here
is about 7 light-years.
24. SATURN IN NATURAL COLORS
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| Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA/ESA) |
The ring swirling around Saturn consists of chunks of ice and
dust. Saturn itself is made of ammonia ice and methane gas. The little dark
spot on Saturn is the shadow from Saturn’s moon Enchiladas.
Hubble has provided images of Saturn in many colors, from
black-and-white, to orange, to blue, green, and red. But in this picture, image
processing specialists have worked to provide a crisp, extremely accurate view
of Saturn, which highlights the planet’s pastel colors. Bands of subtle color – yellows, browns, grays – distinguish differences in the clouds over Saturn,
the second largest planet in the solar system.
25. STUNNING VIEW OF M106
 |
| Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and R. Gendler (for the Hubble Heritage Team) |
This image combines Hubble observations of galaxy M106 with additional information captured by amateur astronomers Robert Gendler and Jay GaBany. Gendler combined Hubble data with his own observations to produce this stunning color image. M106 is a relatively nearby spiral galaxy, a little over 20 million light-years away.
26. HUBBLE SNAPS CLOSE-UP OF THE TARANTULA NEBULA
 |
| Credit: NASA, ESA |
Hubble has taken this stunning close-up shot of part of the Tarantula Nebula. This star-forming region of ionized hydrogen gas is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy which neighbors the Milky Way. It is home to many extreme conditions including supernova remnants and the heaviest star ever found. The Tarantula Nebula is the most luminous nebula of its type in the local Universe.
27. FLOCCULENT SPIRAL NGC 2841
 |
| Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration |
Star formation is one of the most important processes in shaping
the Universe; it plays a pivotal role in the evolution of galaxies and it is
also in the earliest stages of star formation that planetary systems first
appear. Yet there is still much that astronomers don’t understand, such as how
do the properties of stellar nurseries vary according to the composition and
density of gas present, and what triggers star formation in the first place?
The driving force behind star formation is particularly unclear for a type of
galaxy called a flocculent spiral, such as NGC 2841 shown here, which features
short spiral arms rather than prominent and well-defined galactic limbs.
28. HUBBLE CAPTURES VIEW OF ‘MYSTIC MOUNTAIN’
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Credits:NASA, ESA, and M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI) |
This craggy fantasy mountaintop enshrouded by wispy clouds looks
like a bizarre landscape from Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" or a
Dr. Seuss book, depending on your imagination. The NASA Hubble Space Telescope
image, which is even more dramatic than fiction, captures the chaotic activity
atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by
the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being
assaulted from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas
that can be seen streaming from towering peaks.
This turbulent cosmic pinnacle lies within a tempestuous stellar
nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away in the
southern constellation Carina. The image celebrates the 20th anniversary of
Hubble's launch and deployment into an orbit around Earth.
Scorching radiation and fast winds (streams of charged
particles) from super-hot newborn stars in the nebula are shaping and
compressing the pillar, causing new stars to form within it. Streamers of hot
ionized gas can be seen flowing off the ridges of the structure, and wispy
veils of gas and dust, illuminated by starlight, float around its towering
peaks. The denser parts of the pillar are resisting being eroded by radiation
much like a towering butte in Utah's Monument Valley withstands erosion by
water and wind.
Nestled inside this dense mountain are fledgling stars. Long
streamers of gas can be seen shooting in opposite directions off the pedestal
at the top of the image. Another pair of jets is visible at another peak near
the center of the image. These jets (known as HH 901 and HH 902, respectively)
are the signpost for new star birth. The jets are launched by swirling disks
around the young stars, which allow material to slowly accrete onto the stars'
surfaces.
Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 observed the pillar on Feb. 1-2,
2010. The colors in this composite image correspond to the glow of oxygen
(blue), hydrogen and nitrogen (green), and sulfur (red).
29. GALACTIC WRECKAGE IN STEPHAN’S QUINTET
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| Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team |
A clash among members of a famous galaxy quintet reveals an
assortment of stars across a wide color range, from young, blue stars to aging,
red stars. This portrait of Stephan's Quintet, also known as Hickson Compact
Group 92, was taken by the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard NASA's Hubble
Space Telescope. Stephan's Quintet, as the name implies, is a group of five
galaxies. The name, however, is a bit of a misnomer. Studies have shown that
group member NGC 7320, at upper left, is actually a foreground galaxy about
seven times closer to Earth than the rest of the group.
Three of the galaxies have distorted shapes, elongated spiral
arms, and long, gaseous tidal tails containing myriad star clusters, proof of
their close encounters. These interactions have sparked a frenzy of star birth
in the central pair of galaxies. This drama is being played out against a rich
backdrop of faraway galaxies.
The image, taken in visible and near-infrared light, showcases
WFC3's broad wavelength range.
The colors trace the ages of the stellar populations, showing
that star birth occurred at different epochs, stretching over hundreds of
millions of years. The camera's infrared vision also peers through curtains of
dust to see groupings of stars that cannot be seen in visible light.
NGC 7319, at top right, is a barred spiral with distinct spiral
arms that follow nearly 180 degrees back to the bar. The blue specks in the
spiral arm at the top of NGC 7319 and the red dots just above and to the right
of the core are clusters of many thousands of stars. Most of the quintet is too
far away even for Hubble to resolve individual stars.
Continuing clockwise, the next galaxy appears to have two cores,
but it is actually two galaxies, NGC 7318A and NGC 7318B. Encircling the
galaxies are young, bright blue star clusters and pinkish clouds of glowing
hydrogen where infant stars are being born. These stars are less than 10
million years old and have not yet blown away their natal cloud. Far away from
the galaxies, at right, is a patch of intergalactic space where many star
clusters are forming.
NGC 7317, at bottom left, is a normal-looking elliptical galaxy
that is less affected by the interactions. Sharply contrasting with these
galaxies is the dwarf galaxy NGC 7320 at upper left. Bursts of star formation
are occurring in the galaxy's disk, as seen by the blue and pink dots. In this
galaxy, Hubble can resolve individual stars, evidence that NGC 7320 is closer
to Earth.
NGC 7320 is 40 million light-years from Earth. The other members
of the quintet reside 290 million light-years away in the constellation
Pegasus. These farther members are markedly redder than the foreground galaxy,
suggesting that older stars reside in their cores. The stars' light also may be
further reddened by dust stirred up in the encounters.
Spied by Edouard M. Stephan in 1877, Stephan's Quintet is the
first compact group ever discovered. WFC3 observed the quintet in July and
August 2009. The composite image was made by using filters that isolate light from
the blue, green, and infrared portions of the spectrum, as well as emission
from ionized hydrogen.
These Hubble observations are part of the Hubble Servicing
Mission 4 Early Release Observations. NASA astronauts installed the WFC3 camera
during a servicing mission in May to upgrade and repair the 19-year-old Hubble
telescope.
30. BARRED SPIRAL GALAXY NGC 6217
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| Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team |
This image of barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217 is the first image
of a celestial object taken with the newly repaired Advanced Camera for Surveys
(ACS) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. The camera was restored to operation
during the STS-125 servicing mission in May to upgrade Hubble.
The barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217 was photographed on June 13
and July 8, 2009, as part of the initial testing and calibration of Hubble's
ACS.
The galaxy lies 60 million light-years away in the north
circumpolar constellation Ursa Minor.
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