Posts Tagged hubble
Space Quilting
Posted by Danielle in Crafts & Hobby Projects on February 22, 2010
“The Pillars of Creation” © Jimmy McBride
This is a quilt by the talented Jimmy McBride. A QUILT. Of the Eagle Pillars Hubble photo. You know, this one?
He has many fantastic quilts in his portfolio, and I owe my finding of Mr. McBride to this article, via @avgjanecrafter. WOW. Space quilts!!
“The Pillars of Creation” © Jimmy McBride
Far Horizon
My favorite galaxy.
The image above is a bit less than one-TENTH the size of the original. This first HubbleSite release of 2010 is full of galaxies far, far away:
More than 12 billion years of cosmic history are shown in this unprecedented, panoramic, full-color view of thousands of galaxies in various stages of assembly.
This image, taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, was made from mosaics taken in September and October 2009 with the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and in 2004 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The view covers a portion of the southern field of a large galaxy census called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS), a deep-sky study by several observatories to trace the formation and evolution of galaxies.
The final image combines a broad range of colors, from the ultraviolet, through visible light, and into the near-infrared. Such a detailed multi-color view of the universe has never before been assembled in such a combination of color, clarity, accuracy, and depth.
The image shows a rich tapestry of 7,500 galaxies stretching back through most of the universe’s history. The closest galaxies seen in the foreground emitted their observed light about a billion years ago. The farthest galaxies, a few of the very faint red specks, are seen as they appeared more than 13 billion years ago, or roughly 650 million years after the Big Bang. This mosaic spans a slice of space that is equal to about a third of the diameter of the full Moon (10 arcminutes).
Submitted for your approval — go here to see it large. Download, inspect, enjoy.
Barred Spiral
I thought I might as well end the year with a bang, and this fantastic Hubble image of barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217 is just what I had in mind.
Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought to have a modest central bar. Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217, pictured above, was captured in spectacular detail in this recently released image taken by the newly repaired Advanced Camera for Surveys on the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Visible are dark filamentary dust lanes, young clusters of bright blue stars, red emission nebulas of glowing hydrogen gas, a long bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright active nucleus that likely houses a supermassive black hole. Light takes about 60 million years to reach us from NGC 6217, which spans about 30,000 light years across and can be found toward the constellation of the Little Bear (Ursa Minor).
Have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve — here’s to 2010!
Season’s Greetings
Happy holidays and merry Christmas from all of us me, here at Silver Rockets!
Somehow I missed that Hubble released two new holiday cards for this year, and I’m annoyed, so I’m posting one of them below. So there.
Planetary Formation
An interesting new composite from Hubble — get it large to really examine the highlight areas:
How do planets form? To help find out, the Hubble Space Telescope was tasked to take a detailed look at one of the more interesting of all astronomical nebulae, the Great Nebula in Orion. The Orion nebula, visible with the unaided eye near the belt in the constellation of Orion, is an immense nearby starbirth region and probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Insets to the above mosaic show numerous proplyds, many of which are stellar nurseries likely harboring planetary systems in formation. Some proplyds glow as close disks surrounding bright stars light up, while other proplyds contain disks further from their host star, contain cooler dust, and hence appear as dark silhouettes against brighter gas. Studying this dust, in particular, is giving insight for how planets are forming. Many proplyd images also show arcs that are shock waves – fronts where fast moving material encounters slow moving gas. The Orion Nebula lies about 1,500 light years distant and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as our Sun.
Cosmic Candy Floss
Saw this lovely new Hubble release on Universe Today:
Another gorgeous image from Hubble! This close-up of NGC 7023, or the Iris Nebula, shows an area filled with cosmic dust. Illuminated from above by the nearby star HD 200775, the dust resembles pink cotton candy, accentuated with diamond-like stars. The “cotton candy” is actually made up of tiny particles of solid matter, with sizes from ten to a hundred times smaller than those of the dust grains we find on Earth, and the “diamonds” are both background and foreground stars.
It’s images like this one that just take my breath away… and it really does look like cotton candy! Known as “candy floss” in the UK. Wikipedia tells me it was introduced at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 as “fairy floss”, and it is still known as such in Australia. Which I did not know, so there you go. Knowledge is power.
Milky Way Central
A colorful examination of the center of our Milky Way galaxy:
In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, NASA’s Great Observatories — the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory — have collaborated to produce an unprecedented image of the central region of our Milky Way galaxy.
In this spectacular image, observations using infrared light and X-ray light see through the obscuring dust and reveal the intense activity near the galactic core. Note that the center of the galaxy is located within the bright white region to the right of and just below the middle of the image. The entire image width covers about one-half a degree, about the same angular width as the full moon.
Each telescope’s contribution is presented in a different color:
- Yellow represents the near-infrared observations of Hubble. These observations outline the energetic regions where stars are being born as well as reveal hundreds of thousands of stars.
- Red represents the infrared observations of Spitzer. The radiation and winds from stars create glowing dust clouds that exhibit complex structures from compact, spherical globules to long, stringy filaments.
- Blue and violet represent the X-ray observations of Chandra. X-rays are emitted by gas heated to millions of degrees by stellar explosions and by outflows from the supermassive black hole in the galaxy’s center. The bright blue blob on the left side is emission from a double star system containing either a neutron star or a black hole.
When these views are brought together, this composite image provides one of the most detailed views ever of our galaxy’s mysterious core.
Panoramic Carina
I was working with a magazine cutout of this image last night while collaging, so I thought I’d post it. Lackluster post? Yeah, blame my cold. In fact, if you could get it to GO AWAY, I’d be most appreciative. You really have to see it large to appreciate it, get the big version over here. (I think HubbleSite has an even BIGGER version, but I don’t have the link handy.)
In one of the brightest parts of Milky Way lies a nebula where some of the oddest things occur. NGC 3372, known as the Great Nebula in Carina, is home to massive stars and changing nebulas. Eta Carinae, the most energetic star in the nebula, was one of the brightest stars in the sky in the 1830s, but then faded dramatically. The Keyhole Nebula, visible left of center, houses several of the most massive stars known and has also changed its appearance. The entire Carina Nebula spans over 300 light years and lies about 7,500 light-years away in the constellation of Carina. Pictured above is the most detailed image of the Carina Nebula ever taken. The controlled color image is a composite of 48 high-resolution frames taken by the Hubble Space Telescope two years ago. Wide-field annotated and zoomable image versions are also available.
Carina Pillar
Another beautiful image from Hubble, using the new Wide Field Camera 3:
This cosmic pillar of gas and dust is nearly 2 light-years wide. The structure lies within one of our galaxy’s largest star forming regions, the Carina Nebula, shining in southern skies at a distance of about 7,500 light-years. The pillar’s convoluted outlines are shaped by the winds and radiation of Carina’s young, hot, massive stars. But the interior of the cosmic pillar itself is home to stars in the process of formation. In fact, placing your cursor over this visible light image will reveal a penetrating near-infrared view of the pillar – now dominated by two, narrow, energetic jets blasting outward from a still hidden infant star. Both visible light and near-infrared images were made using the Hubble Space Telescope’s newly installed Wide Field Camera 3.
Refurbished Hubble
Posted by Danielle in News & Happenings, Picspam on September 9, 2009
Released today are a set of ten new Hubble images, taken after the final refurbish/repair mission (Hubble Servicing Mission 4) in May. Check out the link for the rest; these two caught my eye. Happy Wednesday!
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