Flying through the Carina Nebula

One of my favorite parts of the IMAX movie Hubble 3D was getting to fly through objects like the Orion Nebula in 3D. Often, when looking at objects in the night sky, I tend to forget that what I see is a complex three dimensional object of which I only get to see one side. Hubble 3D’s voyages through space provided a refreshing view in that it transformed those two dimensional pictures into three dimensional environments, a representation of what the actual objects may look like.




Using new and old images from the Hubble Telescope, the Hubble team has created a new three-dimensional virtual tour of the Carina Nebula, embedded above. Even though the tour is not completely based on solid scientific data and takes great artistic license, it is still breathtaking and inspiring. For me, it reminds me very powerfully of how dynamic, and in a way, tangible, the universe is.

In order to view the movie properly, you need red cyan anaglyphic glasses. If you don’t have the glasses (sadly I don’t either…) you can still enjoy the new image of the Carina Nebula recently released by the Hubble team below. It combines observations of radiation resulting from oxygen, captured this year, and that from hydrogen, captured in 2005.

The Carina Nebula, in Oxygen and Hydrogen Emissions
Image: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Project

Hubble 3D: A Wonderful Homage to One of the Greatest Inventions of Mankind

Image: NASA

Image: Warner Brothers
 Pictures/IMAX Corporation

As soon as I discovered that there was a new IMAX movie being made about the Hubble Space Telescope, I knew that I had to see it. I’ve been fascinated about the Hubble since about third grade. And now there was a 3D IMAX movie honoring the majestic telescope. As I entered the theater I had very high hopes for the film. And with just a few minutes into it, I knew that at the end I would not be disappointed. [Full review below the fold.]

Happy 20th Hubble!

Today is the Hubble Space Telescope's 20th anniversary in orbit. The Hubble Space Telescope has over its lifetime provided many discoveries and produced thousands of awe-inspiring images of deep space, and our local neighborhood in space. To celebrate, NASA has released a new image. The image is a small portion of the Carina Nebula, a large star-birth region in the Milky Way Galaxy, and depicts a pillar of gas and dust (3 light years tall!) rising among jets of gas.

Image: NASA

I'm also celebrating by including some of my favorite images from the Hubble below the fold.

Galaxy Triplet Arp 274

To celebrate the 100 Hours of Astronomy, the people working on the Hubble Space Telescope decided to let the public decide of what the telescope will take a picture. This vote, called Hubble's Next Discovery - You Decide, closed on March 1, and consisted of six interesting objects, details about which are not completely understood. I personally voted for the winner, Arp 274, since it seemed to be a pair of interacting galaxies. However, these galaxies have now revealed a surprise.

Arp 274 was previously thought to be a set of interacting galaxies, galaxies that are "colliding" and gravitationally affecting one another. The ground-based image (left) of the same area of the sky certainly makes it seem that way. But, the new image by the Hubble, with far more detail, reveals that the three galaxies may just be galaxies located near each other, but not interacting together. The largest galaxy in the center, a barred spiral galaxy, appears to be extending an arm into the other spiral galaxy, on the right. Distortion of the shapes of the galaxies by gravity would indicate interaction, but this is simply not exhibited by these galaxies. Additionally, there is a third galaxy in the area, a small compact galaxy. All three contain bright blue areas, where star formation takes place.

You can get this image at the news release, or download a wallpaper for your computer at HubbleSite.

Update: Here is a video detailing the process used to generate this image.



Images: NASA, Palomar Observatory

Astronomy and Space celebrates International Year of Astronomy 2009.

What Should Hubble Look At Next?

This question will be answered by the help of your vote! To celebrate the International Year of Astronomy (IYA), people all over the world can vote to decide what they would like the Hubble Space Telescope to capture an image of, something that its never seen before. Besides just voting, you also get to enter to win one of the images (out of a hundred) of this new object that the Hubble records with its camera.

The image will be released between April 2 and 5, as part of IYA's 100 Hours of Astronomy, when IYA wants as many people as possible to observe the night sky through a telescope. At this time, many conditions will be optimal to enhance this experience, such as the Moon and Saturn's place in the sky.

To vote and enter the drawing for the image, visit this webpage, where you can learn about the project and more information about the six choices available for voting. Remember, the deadline for voting is March 1.

Astronomy and Space Celebrates International Year of Astronomy 2009.

Carbon Dioxide on Extrasolar Planet

Artist's View of the Extrasolar Planet HD 189733b orbiting the star HD 189733

Just a short while ago, the Hubble Space Telescope took the first visible-light photograph of an extrasolar planet, a planet outside our solar system. Now just recently, the space telescope has been used to find the presence of carbon dioxide on an extrasolar planet.

The planet, called HD 189733b, orbiting the star HD 189733, is about the size of Jupiter, and the presence of carbon dioxide on the planet does not prove anything about the presence of extraterrestrial life on there. In fact, the planet is too hot to support life. However, the significance of this discovery was not actually what the telescope found, but the process used to find it.

The process used through the Hubble Space Telescope was used to identify not only carbon dioxide on the planet, but also carbon monoxide, and methane. Just being able to detect, measure, and estimate the amount of something like carbon dioxide on an extrasolar planet is remarkable. This may lay the groundwork for classifying planets by their makeup and potentially looking for signs of life.

This technique (detailed in the picture at right, click for larger view) requires a planet with an orbit tilted towards the Earth edge-on. While orbiting their stars, these planets appear to us to pass in front of their stars, and then go behind the star, a phenomena called an eclipse. When the planet is blocked, only the star's light reaches the Earth. The light emission of the star can be analyzed to tell the chemical composition of the star. This light emission of the star can be analyzed to tell the chemical composition of the star. This light emission is then compared to one taken just before the eclipse, when both the star and the planet's light emissions can be viewed, revealing the chemical compositions of both objects. Since the chemical composition of the star is already known from the star's light emission taken before, this can simply be "subtracted" from the new emission, revealing just the chemical composition of the planet being studied.

Astronomers are also hoping to use similar techniques on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, after its launch in 2013. This telescope's ability to view near-infrared wavelengths will allow it to better look for biomarkers on a terrestrial planet.

Images: NASA

Hubble Takes First Image of an Extrasolar Planet

An artist's concept of Fomalhaut b

The image on the left is the first visible-light photograph of a planet orbiting another star, an extrasolar planet. It was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The planet, named Fomalhaut b, orbits the star Fomalhaut. Fomalhaut b is about three times the mass of Jupiter, is located 25 light-years away, and is estimated to be 100 million years old.

The first evidence for the planet came in 2004, when an earlier image by the Hubble Space Telescope of Fomalhaut revealed a ring of protoplanetary debris, having a defined inner edge, very similar to the Kuiper Belt around the solar system. In 2005, a team at the University of California at Berkeley proposed that this ring of debris was being affected gravitationally by a planet in between the star and inner edge of the ring.

The Hubble Space Telescope has now photographed a point of light believed to be the planet Fomalhaut b in that debris. The point lies 1.8 billion miles inside the inner edge of the ring.

Even though the object photographed is a billion times fainter than the star Fomalhaut, it is still brighter than what is expected from a planet three times the size of Jupiter. A possible explanation for this is that the planet has a ring of ice and dust orbiting it reflecting light, like Saturn does, which may later coalesce to form moons.

By comparing images from 2004 and 2006, the team was able to calculate the orbital period of the object. Using Kepler's laws of planetary motion, this came out to an 872-year-long orbit.

Further observations of the planet will reveal more information about the planet, such as a more accurate mass.

For more information, visit:

• The HubbleSite News Release
  

Images: NASA

A "perfect ten" for the Hubble Space Telescope

Arp 147

Image: NASA

A few weeks after the Hubble Space Telescope went into sleep mode, due to an electrical malfunction, it came back with a marvelous photo of two adjacent galaxies, resembling a number "10". The image came just a few days after the telescope resumed scientific observations, and the camera has been proven to show that it has been working exactly like it was before the telescope entered sleep mode.


The pair of galaxies featured, Arp 147, have many interesting features. The galaxy on the right is blue, indicating an area of intense star formation. The shape and the position of the two galaxies is due to the galaxy currently on the left passing through the one on the right, creating a ripple effect starting from the point of impact. The outer material moving in due to the increased gravitational pull of the two galaxies collided with the this ripple traveling outwards. The shock and dense gas created with this collision resulted in the increased amount of star production.


The galaxy on the left passed through this collision nearly unscathed, with the exception being the ring of starlight surrounding it. The bright red object in the bottom left corner of the image is thought to be the nucleus of the galaxy that was hit.


Besides the interesting subject of the image, the Hubble has recently been suffering numerous problems. The last servicing mission for the famous telescope was originally scheduled for February. It has now been delayed to May, since a spare part for fixing this current problem will not be ready for February.


P.S.
50th post for Astronomy and Space!

Hubble's 100,000th Orbit

The Hubble Space Telescope has just recently completed its 100,000th orbit around Earth today, August 11, 2008. The telescope reached that milestone above the Pacific Ocean (Illustration above). It has been a long journey for this famous telescope, 18 years long, one that has let humans learn so much about the universe. However, it has not always been an easy life for the Hubble, marked by quite a few challenges and repairs. To mark this special event, the researchers at the Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore, Maryland have decided to do something special.

These researchers decided to point the giant space telescope at a part of the nebula near star cluster NGC 2074. The nebula, 170,000 light-years away from us, is an intense area of star formation that may have been caused by a supernova explosion nearby. It is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is a satellite of the Milky Way galaxy.

The colorful image taken by the Hubble, below, reveals many features of the nebula lighted up by strong ultraviolet radiation. Young stars existing in NGC 2074 are emitting strong radiation that is eating away the edges of the nebula. The area covered by the image spans a massive 100 light-years and huge towers of dust come out of the bright colorful walls of gas that form part of a large molecular cloud. To give a sense of scale, the seahorse-shaped tower at lower, right in the image measures about 20 light-years in length, approximately 4 times the distance between the Sun and Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our sun!

This color image was taken by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 onboard the Hubble Space Telescope on August 10, 2008. The Red colors show emission from sulfur atoms, green from glowing hydrogen, and blue from glowing oxygen.

Images: NASA

Rumble of the Red Spots

You may be familiar with the Great Red Spot, the huge storm brewing in the atmosphere of Jupiter. It is so large, that it can contain two or three Earths within itself! However, you may not know that the Great Red Spot is not alone.

The Red Spots

Three white storms came together to form a bigger storm, called Oval BA, in 2000 on Jupiter. In August 2005, Oval BA started to turn red, and right now is getting more red with time. Because of its color and similarity to the Great Red Spot, this red spot is now being called Red Spot Jr. It has passed by the Great Red Spot now twice. But, it doesn't just end there!

There was also a third red spot on Jupiter, discovered in May, nicknamed Baby Red Spot. However, it has just recently met its demise.

The Death of Baby Red Spot

As shown in the recent (late June/early July) picture of Jupiter by the Hubble Space Telescope above, Baby Red Spot met up with the Great Red Spot. And it was not a happy meeting. The small spot got stuck in the Great Red Spot's anticyclonic (counter-clockwise) spin, and all that came out was a pale and deformed spot. Experts think that this remaining spot will get sucked back into the Great Red Spot again.

What This All Means

The show of power by the Great Red Spot demonstrates its longevity. The recent show of events can tell us why this huge storm on Jupiter has lasted so long. It is known to be at least 178 years old, most likely older, and this was just an example of one of the reasons the Great Red Spot has reached this age.

The animation below of the three pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the process by which the Great Red Spot has demolished Baby Red Spot. Also notice Red Spot Jr. passing underneath, unscathed.

Image and Video: NASA

Red Stripe in Space

Image: NASA/ESA

So what exactly is that red stripe in the picture? The picture is one of the latest from the Hubble Space Telescope, and the main focus of the image is a red trail of gas. This gas is part of the remnant of a supernova that took place in our galaxy, and lies 6,850 light years away from Earth. So what supernova caused this?

SN 1006 took place in 1006 C.E. (A.D.) between April 30 and May 1. It had the brightest

 apparent magnitude (brightness viewed on Earth) of any stellar event known! The event has been described by many civilizations, particularly the Chinese and the Arabic, which provide us with detailed descriptions of the explosion as it appeared on Earth. Today, this red band is a part of what is left from the mighty supernova. The image on the right shows the shell of the supernova remnant and to what part of the shell the above image belongs to (outlined). Click on the image to view a larger size.

Find out more about:

• The Hubble Space Telescope Image (HubbleSite)
• SN 1006 (Wikipedia)

Hubble's Servicing Missions

Hubble was designed to be one of the greatest telescopes. It operates in space, where there are no clouds, atmosphere or anything else to get in its way to take great pictures.

But, immediately after deployment, a problem became clear. The main mirror was flawed, suffering from spherical aberration, or simply imperfection! So a servicing mission, in December 1993, was sent out to fix this flaw (Servicing Mission 1, see picture at left). Spending five days to work on this, the astronauts installed two devices, Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 and the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement.

For Servicing Mission 2, in February 1997, the humongous telescope was outfitted with the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer, in order to see our universe in infrared wavelength. Astronauts also installed the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph.

For Servicing Mission 3A, the telescope received a major hardware update. Among the new items added were gyroscopes and a replacement of one of the three Fine Guidance Sensors (you can see this in the picture at left). This improvement for the Hubble made it like new again. The telescope was deployed back into space on December 25, 1999.

In Servicing Mission 3B (NASA split Servicing Mission 3 into two parts, that's why there's 3A and 3B), in March of 2002, the seven member crew of Columbia installed the Advanced Camera for Surveys, or ACS, (see picture at right) with a wide field of view and better image quality than the previous surveying instrument, the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The solar panels were replaced as well, with four new large and flexible panels. These panels produce 30 percent more power than the old ones. Along with this change, the original Power Control Unit was changed, too. This change required the telescope to power down for the first time after its launch in 1990. A new cooling system was added on to the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer, because the previous one had used up its nitrogen ice, and new steering equipment was added on as well.

Originally, NASA was planning not to conduct any further service missions, due to concerns about safety of the space shuttle. But now, a future servicing mission is planned as well, called Service Mission 4. The mission will work on replacing outdated and old equipment, like the Fine Guidance Sensor, on the telescope and make sure the telescope is in top shape. Right now, this mission is planned for September 2008.

For more information, visit:

• HubbleSite (Servicing Missions, Servicing Mission 4)
• SPACE.com
  

Hubble's 17th Birthday!

Today is the 17th anniversary of the launch and deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope. To celebrate, the Hubble Space Telescope has taken one of the largest panoramas it has ever taken, called "The Carina Nebula: Star Birth in the Extreme", (shown above). It is the central region of the Carina Nebula, fifty light-years wide, where new stars are being born and old stars are dying. The panorama is composed of 48 shots, taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys.

For more information, visit:

• HubbleSite
• National Geographic News
• Wikipedia