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UrduAstronomers have used Hubble to see closer than ever into an energetic monster black hole powering 3C 273, the first quasar ever discovered. The new image details a lot of weird things: filaments, lobes, and a mysterious L-shaped structure, all within 16,000 light-years of the black hole.
Tag: Hubble Space Telescope
NASA’s Hubble Sees Aftermath of Galaxy’s Scrape with Milky Way
Hubble witnessed a dwarf galaxy crashing through the Milky Way galaxy’s gaseous halo and living to tell the tale…though a bit worse for wear!
NASA’s Hubble Sees a Stellar Volcano
The Hubble Space Telescope has provided a dramatic and colorful close-up look at R Aquarii, one of the most rambunctious stars in our galaxy, weaving a huge spiral pattern among the stars.
NASA’s Hubble, New Horizons Team Up for a Simultaneous Look at Uranus
Uranus, the planet second most distant from our Sun, has been described as mysterious, strange, and fairly unknown to those of us here on Earth. However, in astronomy, these terms are pretty relative. Compared to the remote, dark stretches of the early universe or oddball exoplanets dozens of light-years from our solar system, researchers actually know a lot about Uranus.
NASA’s Hubble Watches Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Behave Like a Stress Ball
Using Hubble, astronomers have discovered that Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (GRS) is not as stable as it might look. Hubble measurements of the GRS’s size, shape, brightness, color, and vorticity showed it can change dimensions—looking like a slightly skinnier or fatter red oval over 90 days.
BLACK HOLE DESTROYS STAR, GOES AFTER ANOTHER, NASA FINDS
A massive black hole has torn apart one star and is now using that stellar wreckage to pummel another star or smaller black hole that used to be in the clear.
NASA’s Hubble Finds that a Black Hole Beam Promotes Stellar Eruptions
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the blowtorch-like jet blasting from a supermassive black hole at the core of galaxy M87 seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory. The stars, called novae, are not caught inside the jet, but are apparently in a dangerous neighborhood nearby. Hubble found twice as many novae going off near the jet as elsewhere in the giant galaxy during the surveyed time period.
Magnifying Deep Space Through the “Carousel Lens”
A newly discovered cluster-scale strong gravitational lens, with a rare alignment of seven background lensed galaxies, provides a unique opportunity to study cosmology.
NASA’s Hubble Finds More Black Holes than Expected in the Early Universe
Using Hubble, astronomers have found more black holes in the early universe than previously thought. They went black hole hunting in the landmark Hubble Ultra Deep Field, first revealed in 2004, and in following observations to look for supermassive black holes.
NASA’s Hubble, Chandra Find Supermassive Black Hole Duo
Hubble and Chandra have uncovered a pair of supermassive black holes that are just 300 light-years apart. They are buried deep inside the heart of a pair of colliding galaxies that will eventually merge to make a bigger black hole.
NASA’s Hubble, MAVEN Help Solve the Mystery of Mars’ Escaping Water
A Martian mystery: What happened to the water that once covered the Red Planet? Scientists know some of it went deep underground, but what became of the rest? Hubble and MAVEN teamed up to help scientists understand the history of water on Mars.
Astronomers find missing link in massive black hole formation
Newly identified fast-moving stars in the star cluster Omega Centauri provide solid evidence for a central black hole in the cluster. With at least 8,200 solar masses, that black hole is the best candidate for a class of black holes astronomers have long believed to exist: intermediate-mass black holes, formed in the early stages of galaxy evolution.
NASA’s Hubble Finds Strong Evidence for Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in Omega Centauri
Astronomers have identified the nearest black hole to Earth–weighing an estimated 8,200 solar masses–using 20 years of Hubble telescope observations. It is in the heart of the globular star cluster Omega Centauri, located 17,700 light-years away.
Pillars of Creation Star in New Visualization from NASA’s Hubble and Webb Telescope
Combining data from NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, a team from NASA’s Universe of Learning at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland has produced a breathtaking new 3D visualization of the towering “Pillars of Creation” in the Eagle Nebula.
NASA’s Hubble Finds Surprises Around a Star That Erupted 40 Years Ago
Astronomers have used new and archival data from Hubble to revisit one of the strangest stars in our galaxy–40 years after it burst onto the scene as an extraordinarily bright and long-lived nova.
Hubble Celebrates 34th Anniversary with a Look at the Little Dumbbell Nebula
To celebrate Hubble’s 34th launch anniversary, NASA released the telescope’s new observation of the Little Dumbbell Nebula. Also known as Messier 76, or M76, it is composed of a ring, seen edge-on as the central bar structure, where a central red giant star burned out, and two lobes of gas and dust that are on either opening of the ring.
Hubble Goes Hunting for Small Main Belt Asteroids
Astronomers and volunteer citizen scientists used Hubble’s unique capabilities to identify a largely unseen population of very small asteroids. The treasure hunt required perusing 37,000 archived Hubble images spanning 19 years. The payoff? Finding 1,701 asteroid trails, with 1,031 of the asteroids previously uncatalogued. About 400 of these uncatalogued asteroids are smaller than 1 kilometer.
NASA’s Hubble Finds that Aging Brown Dwarfs Grow Lonely
A Hubble telescope survey has found that brown dwarfs—objects smaller than stars but bigger than planets—live a lonely life as they age. Over time they lose the companion brown dwarf that was born alongside them and the objects drift their separate ways.
NASA’s Hubble Traces ‘String of Pearls’ Star Clusters in Galaxy Collisions
When galaxies go bump in the night, they cook-up new generations of stars that might otherwise have never been born. These close encounters between galaxies cause a gravitational tug-of-war.
Living on the Edge: Supernova Bubble Expands in New Hubble Time-Lapse Movie
Hubble zoomed in for a close-up look at one sliver of the Cygnus Loop nebula–a huge bubble of glowing gasses. Gossamer filaments resembling wrinkles in a bedsheet stretched across two light-years were found.
Neptune’s Disappearing Clouds Linked to the Solar Cycle
Astronomers have uncovered a link between Neptune’s shifting cloud abundance and the Sun’s 11-year solar cycle that increases the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching the planet. This discovery is based on three decades of observations by Hubble.
Hubble Unexpectedly Finds Double Quasar in Distant Universe
Hubble has found a rare pair of quasars inside two merging galaxies. These brilliant beacons are powered by supermassive black holes. The galaxies will eventually merge—and so will the quasars. This will result in an even more powerful black hole.
Hubble Captures Movie of DART Asteroid Impact Debris
A time-lapse movie from the Hubble Space Telescope captures the impact of asteroid Dimorphos when it was deliberately hit by NASA’s DART spacecraft on Sept. 26, 2022. The movie shows three overlapping stages of the impact aftermath: the formation of an ejecta cone; the spiral swirl of debris caught up along the asteroid’s orbit about its companion asteroid; and the tail swept behind the asteroid by the pressure of sunlight. Later on, Hubble records the tail splitting in two.
Massive fuel hungry black holes feed off intergalactic gas
Research led by the University of Southampton has revealed how supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are feeding off gas clouds which reach them by travelling hundreds of thousands of light years from one galaxy to another.
HUBBLE FINDS HUNGRY BLACK HOLE TWISTING CAPTURED STAR INTO DONUT SHAPE
Astronomers using Hubble have recorded a star getting swallowed by a giant black hole. Hubble didn’t observe the mayhem directly, but captured spectral fingerprints that provide clues as to how a star gets shredded as it is devoured.
HUBBLE FINDS THAT GHOST LIGHT AMONG GALAXIES STRETCHES FAR BACK IN TIME
These are Hubble Space Telescope images of two massive clusters of galaxies. The artificially added blue color is translated from Hubble data that captured a phenomenon called intracluster light. This extremely faint glow traces a smooth distribution of light from wandering stars scattered across the cluster. Billions of years ago, the stars were shed from their parent galaxies and now drift through intergalactic space alone.
Two Exoplanets May Be Mostly Water, NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer Find
Astronomers have uncovered a pair of planets that are true “water worlds,” unlike any planet found in our solar system. Slightly larger than Earth, they have global oceans at least 500 times deeper than the average depth of Earth’s oceans.
Hubble Captures 3 Faces of Evolving Supernova in Early Universe
Light from a star that exploded over 11 billion years ago was captured by Hubble Space Telescope not just as one postcard from the remote past but three messages that chronicle the fading fireball over a period of one week.
Hubble Detects Protective Shield Defending a Pair of Dwarf Galaxies
Researchers have used Hubble and FUSE observations of ultraviolet light from quasars to detect and map the Magellanic Corona, a diffuse halo of hot, supercharged gas surrounding the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. Shown in purple, the corona stretches more than 100,000 light-years from the main mass of stars, gas, and dust that make up the Magellanic Clouds, intermingling with the hotter and more extensive Milky Way Corona, shown in blue. The corona is thought to act as a buffer protecting the dwarf galaxies’ vital star-forming gas from the gravitational pull of the much larger Milky Way.
Hubble Reaches New Milestone in Mystery of Universe’s Expansion Rate
Completing a nearly 30-year marathon, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has calibrated more than 40 “milepost markers” of space and time to help scientists measure the expansion rate of the universe to a precision of just over 1%. The measurement is about eight times more precise than Hubble’s expected capability.
Hubble Celebrates Halloween With A Glowering, Dying Star
Hubble celebrates Halloween with a striking view of the aging red giant star CW Leonis. The orange-red cobweb-like shells are dusty clouds of sooty carbon engulfing the dying star. Bright searchlight beams poke through the dust.
Hubble Gives Unprecedented, Early View of a Doomed Star’s Destruction
Hubble delivered a ringside seat to a supernova in the very earliest stage of exploding, giving astronomers an unprecedented view of the first moments of a star’s spectacular death.
Hubble Shows Winds in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Are Speeding Up
The innermost lane may typically be favored to win a race, but in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, the winds in its outermost “lane” are taking the lead! Only Hubble can spot these trends: The observatory acts like a storm tracker for the giant planets in our solar system every year.
Hubble Snapshot of ‘Molten Ring’ Galaxy Prompts New Research
In this image, a remote galaxy is greatly magnified and distorted by the effects of gravitationally warped space. After its public release, astronomers used the picture to measure the galaxy’s distance of 9.4 billion light-years. This places the galaxy at the peak epoch of star formation in cosmic evolution.
Hubble Finds Early, Massive Galaxies Running on Empty
Fast and furious—that’s how six massive galaxies in the early universe lived before they literally ran out of gas, shut down star formation, and died. These images are composites from Hubble and ALMA.
Rerun of Supernova Blast Is Expected to Appear in 2037
Hubble astronomers are predicting that the fading light from a distant supernova will be rebroadcast in 16 years. This future appearance will be the fourth known view of the same exploded star, dubbed Supernova Requiem.
Hubble Discovers Hydrogen-Burning White Dwarfs Enjoying Slow Aging
Astronomers using Hubble have uncovered burned-out stars that look younger than they really are. After the nuclear furnaces at their cores shut down, the stars continue burning leftover hydrogen on their surface.
Comet ATLAS May Have Been a Blast from the Past
Astronomers who used the Hubble telescope to watch comet ATLAS disintegrate into a cascade of icy fragments in mid-2020, now believe it came from a parent comet that swung by the Sun 5,000 years ago.
Hubble Finds First Evidence of Water Vapor at Jupiter’s Moon Ganymede
Located ½-billion miles from the Sun, the water ice on Ganymede’s surface is frozen solid in frigid temperatures as low as minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit. This makes the ice as hard as rock. Still, a rain of charged particles from the Sun is enough to turn the ice into water vapor at high noon on Ganymede. This is the first time such evidence has been found, courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope’s spectroscopic observations of aurora on Ganymede spanning two decades. The auroras are used to trace the presence of oxygen, which then is linked to the presence of water molecules sputtering off the surface. Ganymede has a deep ocean located an estimated 100 miles below the surface.
First Images from Rebooted Hubble: Astronomers Peer at Oddball Galaxies
These early snapshots demonstrate Hubble’s return to full science operations, following correction of a computer anomaly aboard the spacecraft. Normal science observations were restarted on July 17, at 1:18 pm EDT.
Mystery of Galaxy’s Missing Dark Matter Deepens
Hubble astronomers say they confirmed that an oddball
galaxy mysteriously lacks dark matter—the glue that holds stars and gas together in galaxies. This confirmation challenges the standard ideas of how researchers think galaxies work.
Lopsided Galaxy NGC 2776
The magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 2276 looks a bit lopsided in this Hubble Space Telescope snapshot. A bright hub of older yellowish stars normally lies directly in the center of most spiral galaxies. But the bulge in NGC 2276 looks offset to the upper left.
Hubble Tracks Down Fast Radio Bursts to Galaxies’ Spiral Arms
Astronomers are on the trail of one of the universe’s most enigmatic events: powerful bursts of radio waves that disappear in the blink of an eye. Using Hubble, they have traced the radio bursts to the spiral arms of distant galaxies.
Hubble Watches How a Giant Planet Grows
Researchers using Hubble directly measured the mass growth rate of PDS 70b for the first time by using the observatory’s unique ultraviolet sensitivities to capture radiation from extremely hot gas falling onto the planet.
Hubble Captures Giant Star on the Edge of Destruction
Hubble is marking its 31st anniversary in orbit with this image of a “celebrity star.” AG Carinae is one of the brightest stars seen in our Milky Way galaxy, encircled by a glowing halo of gas and dust.
Hubble Spots Double Quasars in Merging Galaxies
Astronomers are “seeing double,” uncovering two close pairs of ancient quasars that reside at the centers of merging galaxies. These brilliant light beacons are powered by supermassive black holes feeding on material, unleashing a torrent of radiation.
Hubble Shows Torrential Outflows from Infant Stars May Not Stop Them from Growing
These four Hubble images reveal the chaotic birth of stars in the Orion complex, the nearest major star-forming region to Earth. Astronomers found that the cavities in the surrounding gas cloud sculpted by a forming star’s outflow did not grow regularly as they matured, as theories propose.
Distant Planet May Be On Its Second Atmosphere, NASA’s Hubble Finds
Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found evidence that a planet orbiting a distant star may have lost its atmosphere but gained a second one through volcanic activity.
Hubble Solves Mystery of Monster Star’s Dimming
Hubble astronomers are investigating the dimming of one of the most colossal stars ever seen, VY Canis Majoris. Big enough to swallow our solar system out to Saturn’s orbit, the faded star is expelling huge dust clouds late in its life.
Comet Makes a Pit Stop Near Jupiter’s Asteroids
Hubble snapped this image of the young comet-like object P/2019 LD2 as it orbits near Jupiter’s captured ancient asteroids, which are called Trojans. The icy object is the first comet astronomers have spotted near the Trojan population.