ESA Hubble Image: Cat's Eye Nebula Scanned

An ESA HST image of the Cat's Eye nebula taken with the ACS/WFC (integration time 1.2 h; north is up and east is left). 

The scale of the image is ~1 by ~1 arcminute. 

Middle: the ~84,000 Gaia detections that were made in this area from 25 July to 21 August 2014. 

A superposition of the two images, showing that Gaia is actually able to detect not only stars but also high surface brightness filamentary structures.

HST image credit: NASA, ESA, HEIC, The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Gaia image credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC/UB/IEEC

The top image shows a Hubble Space Telescope exposure of the Cat's Eye Nebula, also known as NGC 6543.

This 1000-year old planetary nebula hosts a central, roughly one solar-mass star at a distance of about 1 kpc.

The Cat's Eye Nebula is coincidentally located very close to the north ecliptic pole, which is one of the two areas on the sky which was scanned some 222 times by Gaia during the 4-week period between 25 July and 21 August 2014 (commonly known as the "28 days undisturbed ecliptic-pole scanning law" phase at the beginning of Gaia's nominal life).

In this period, Gaia's on-board detection algorithms registered more than 84,000 detections in the nebula, depicted in the centre image above.

During Operations Rehearsal 5, which is currently being conducted by the Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC), these on-board detections were mapped on the sky during the cross-matching process at the Data Processing Centre in Barcelona (DPCB), somewhat surprisingly revealing that they accurately trace out gaseous filaments in the nebula (right image).

Various details in the structure of the nebula, as well as the unexplained presence of hard X rays, suggest that the central star may be a double-star system with an accretion disk and precessing jets.

Gaia will carefully monitor this object until 2019 and the end-of-mission micro-arcsecond astrometry may well reveal the binary nature of this enigmatic system.

Hubble Image: Spiral galaxy NGC 1084 holds many Supernovae

Credit: NASA, ESA, and S. Smartt (Queen's University Belfast), Acknowledgement: Brian Campbell

In this Hubble image, we can see an almost face-on view of the galaxy NGC 1084.

At first glance, this galaxy is pretty unoriginal.

Like the majority of galaxies that we observe it is a spiral galaxy, and, as with about half of all spirals, it has no bar running through its loosely wound arms.

However, although it may seem unremarkable on paper, NGC 1084 is actually a near-perfect example of this type of galaxy, and Hubble has a near-perfect view of it.

NGC 1084 has hosted several violent events known as supernovae, explosions that occur when massive stars, many times more massive than the sun, approach their twilight years.

As the fusion processes in their cores run out of fuel and come to an end, these stellar giants collapse, blowing off their outer layers in a violent explosion.

Supernovae can often briefly outshine an entire galaxy, before then fading away over several weeks or months.

Although directly observing one of these explosions is hard to do, in galaxies like NGC 1084 astronomers can find and study the remnants left behind.

Astronomers have noted five supernova explosions within NGC 1084 over the past half century.

These remnants are named after the year in which they took place—1963P, 1996an, 1998dl, 2009H, and 2012ec.

Hubble Image: Observing the Heart of NGC 5793

This new Hubble image is centered on NGC 5793, a spiral galaxy over 150 million light-years away in the constellation of Libra. 

This galaxy has two particularly striking features: a beautiful dust lane and an intensely bright center. much brighter than that of our own galaxy, or indeed those of most spiral galaxies we observe.

NGC 5793 is a Seyfert galaxy. These galaxies have incredibly luminous centers that are thought to be caused by hungry supermassive black holes, black holes that can be billions of times the size of the sun, that pull in and devour gas and dust from their surroundings.

This galaxy is of great interest to astronomers for many reasons. For one, it appears to house objects known as masers.

Whereas lasers emit visible light, masers emit microwave radiation. The term "masers" comes from the acronym Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

Maser emission is caused by particles that absorb energy from their surroundings and then re-emit this in the microwave part of the spectrum.

Naturally occurring masers, like those observed in NGC 5793, can tell us a lot about their environment; we see these kinds of masers in areas where stars are forming.

In NGC 5793 there are also intense mega-masers, which are thousands of times more luminous than the sun.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and E. Perlman (Florida Institute of Technology)

Hubble Image: Starbursting in the galaxy M82

Credit: Josh Marvil (NM Tech/NRAO), Bill Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF), NASA

Messier 82 (M82), the galaxy in which the nearest supernova in decades recently exploded, also is the closest galaxy that is undergoing a rapid burst of star formation, known as a starburst.

About 12 million light-years away, it is seen nearly edge-on, as shown in the larger, visible-light image from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The inset is a new radio image, made with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), that reveals fresh information about the central 5,200 light-years of the galaxy.

The radio emission seen here is produced by ionized gas and by fast-moving electrons interacting with the interstellar magnetic field.

The bright dots are a mix of star-forming regions and supernova remnants, the debris from stellar explosions; analysis of the VLA data tells scientists which of these are which.

Scientists also are studying the faint, wispy features, many of which were previously unseen, to investigate their relationship with this galaxy's starburst-driven superwind.

Supernova 2014J is located outside the inset, to the right. VLA observations to date show that, like all other supernovae of its particular type, SN 2014J has not yet been found to be emitting radio waves.

Hubble image of galaxy cluster Abell 1689

This new Hubble image shows galaxy cluster Abell 1689. It combines both visible and infrared data from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) with a combined exposure time of over 34 hours (image on left over 13 hours, image on right over 20 hours) to reveal this patch of sky in greater and striking detail than in previous observations.

This image is peppered with glowing golden clumps, bright stars, and distant, ethereal spiral galaxies. 

Material from some of these galaxies is being stripped away, giving the impression that the galaxy is dripping, or bleeding, into the surrounding space.

Also visible are a number of electric blue streaks, circling and arcing around the fuzzy galaxies in the center. 

These streaks are the telltale signs of a cosmic phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. Abell 1689 is so massive that it bends and warps the space around it, affecting how light from objects behind the cluster travels through space.

These streaks are the distorted forms of galaxies that lie behind the cluster. 

Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Blakeslee (NRC Herzberg Astrophysics Program, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory), and H. Ford (JHU)

This new image from Hubble is one of the best ever views of the massive galaxy cluster Abell 1689, and shows the phenomenon of gravitational lensing with unprecedented clarity.

This cluster acts like a cosmic lens, magnifying the light from objects lying behind it and making it possible for astronomers to explore incredibly distant regions of space. As well as being packed with galaxies, Abell 1689 has been found to host a huge population of globular clusters.

Hubble previously observed this cluster back in 2002. However, this new image combines visible and infrared data from Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to reveal this patch of sky in greater detail than ever before, with a combined total exposure time of over 34 hours.

These new, deeper, observations were taken in order to explore the globular clusters within Abell 1689. This new study has shown that Abell 1689 hosts the largest population of globular clusters ever found.

While our galaxy, the Milky Way, is only home to around 150 of these old clumps of stars, Hubble has spied some 10 000 globular clusters within Abell 1689.

From this, the astronomers estimate that this galaxy cluster could possibly contain over 160 000 globulars overall – an unprecedented number.

This is not the first time that this trusty magnifying glass has helped astronomer detectives try to solve clues about the Universe.

In 2010, astronomers were able to investigate the elusive phenomena of dark matter and dark energy by mapping the composition of Abell 1689.

Its powers as a zoom lens also enabled Hubble to identify a galaxy dubbed A1689-zD1 in 2008, one of the youngest and brightest galaxies ever seen at the time.

This image is peppered with glowing golden clumps, bright stars, and distant, ethereal spiral galaxies.

Material from some of these galaxies is being stripped away, giving the impression that the galaxy is dripping into the surrounding space. Also visible are a number of electric blue streaks, circling and arcing around the fuzzy galaxies in the centre.

These streaks are the tell-tale signs of a cosmic phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. Abell 1689 is so massive that it actually bends and warps the space around it, affecting how light from objects behind the cluster travels through space.

These streaks are actually the distorted forms of galaxies that lie behind Abell 1689.

Other galaxy clusters like Abell 1689 will be observed by Hubble during the upcoming Frontier Fields programme, which will exploit the magnifying powers of massive gravitational lenses to see even further into the distant Universe.

More information: A paper describing the observations of globular clusters within Abell 1689, entitled "The rich globular cluster system of Abell 1689 and the radial dependence of the globular cluster formation efficiency", will appear in the 20 September issue of The Astrophysical Journal : iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/775/1/20/

ESA NASA Hubble Image: Cosmic Caterpillar

This light-year-long knot of interstellar gas and dust resembles a caterpillar on its way to a feast. 

But the meat of the story is not only what this cosmic caterpillar eats for lunch, but also what's eating it. 

Harsh winds from extremely bright stars are blasting ultraviolet radiation at this 'wanna-be' star and sculpting the gas and dust into its long shape.

Credit: ESA NASA Hubble

ESA NASA Hubble Image: Mysterious Old Spiral

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt

This striking cosmic whirl is the center of galaxy NGC 524, as seen with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

This galaxy is located in the constellation of Pisces, some 90 million light-years from Earth.

NGC 524 is a lenticular galaxy.

Lenticular galaxies are believed to be an intermediate state in galactic evolution — they are neither elliptical nor spiral.

Spirals are middle-aged galaxies with vast, pin wheeling arms that contain millions of stars.

Along with these stars are large clouds of gas and dust that, when dense enough, are the nurseries where new stars are born. When all the gas is either depleted or lost into space, the arms gradually fade away and the spiral shape begins to weaken.

At the end of this process, what remains is a lenticular galaxy — a bright disc full of old, red stars surrounded by what little gas and dust the galaxy has managed to cling on to.

This image shows the shape of NGC 524 in detail, formed by the remaining gas surrounding the galaxy’s central bulge. Observations of this galaxy have revealed that it maintains some spiral-like motion, explaining its intricate structure.

NASA /ESA's Hubble Image: A stranger in the crowd

Credit: European Space Agency

The constellation of Virgo (The Virgin) is the largest of the Zodiac constellations, and the second largest overall after Hydra (The Water Snake).

Its most appealing feature, however, is the sheer number of galaxies that lie within it.

In this picture, among a crowd of face- and edge-on spiral, elliptical, and irregular galaxies, lies NGC 4866, a lenticular galaxy situated about 80 million light-years from Earth.

Lenticular galaxies are somewhere between spirals and ellipticals in terms of shape and properties.

From the picture, we can appreciate the bright central bulge of NGC 4866, which contains primarily old stars, but no spiral arms are visible.

The galaxy is seen from Earth as almost edge-on, meaning that the disc structure—a feature not present in elliptical galaxies—is clearly visible.

Faint dust lanes trace across NGC 4866 in this image, obscuring part of the galaxy's light.

To the right of the galaxy is a very bright star that appears to lie within NGC 4866's halo.

However, this star actually lies much closer to us; in front of the galaxy, along our line of sight.

These kinds of perspective tricks are common when observing, and can initially deceive astronomers as to the true nature and position of objects such as galaxies, stars, and clusters.

This sharp image of NGC 4866 was captured by the Advanced Camera for Surveys, an instrument on the NASA /ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

ESA NASA Hubble Image: Inseparable galactic twins

Credit: ESA /Nasa Hubble team

Looking towards the constellation of Triangulum (The Triangle), in the northern sky, lies the galaxy pair MRK 1034.

The two very similar galaxies, named PGC 9074 and PGC 9071, are close enough to one another to be bound together by gravity, although no gravitational disturbance can yet be seen in the image.

These objects are probably only just beginning to interact gravitationally.

Both are spiral galaxies, and are presented to our eyes face-on, so we are able to appreciate their distinctive shapes.

On the left of the image, spiral galaxy PGC 9074 shows a bright bulge and two spiral arms tightly wound around the nucleus, features which have led scientists to classify it as a type Sa galaxy.

Close by, PGC 9071—a type Sb galaxy—although very similar and almost the same size as its neighbor, has a fainter bulge and a slightly different structure to its arms: their coils are further apart.

The spiral arms of both objects clearly show dark patches of dust obscuring the light of the stars lying behind, mixed with bright blue clusters of hot, recently-formed stars.

Older, cooler stars can be found in the glowing, compact yellowish bulge towards the center of the galaxy.

The whole structure of each galaxy is surrounded by a much fainter round halo of old stars, some residing in globular clusters.

Gradually, these two neighbors will attract each other, the process of star formation will be increased and tidal forces will throw out long tails of stars and gas.

Eventually, after maybe hundreds of millions of years, the structures of the interacting galaxies will merge together into a new, larger galaxy.

Hubble Image: Reveals very bright South America Galaxy

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

The contorted object captured by Hubble in this picture is IRAS 22491-1808, also known as the South America Galaxy. 

It is an ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) that emits a huge amount of light at infrared wavelengths. 

The reason for this intense infrared emission lies in an episode of strong star formation activity, which was set off by a collision between two interacting galaxies.

In this image, the twisted shape hides a number of features. 

In the central region, which is very complex and disturbed, scientists have been able to distinguish two nuclei, remains of the two different galaxies that are currently colliding to form a new one. 

IRAS 22491-1808 is among the most luminous of these types of galaxies, and is considered to be mid-way through its merging stage.

The center of this appealing object also shows several intense star-forming knots which, as seen in the picture, actually outshine the nuclei in optical wavelengths. 

To pick out the two merging nuclei in IRAS 22491-1808, scientists have had to observe it in infrared wavelengths, where they are more distinct.

Other traces of the galactic collision are the three very noticeable tails in the image—two linear and one circular. 

The tail extending towards the bottom of the image from the main body exhibits a red clump of star formation at its base.

NASA Hubble Image: Ring Nebula

In this composite image, visible-light observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are combined with infrared data from the ground-based Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona to assemble a dramatic view of the well-known Ring Nebula. 

Called a planetary nebula, the Ring Nebula is the glowing remains of a Sun-like star. 

The object is tilted toward Earth so that astronomers see the ring face-on. 

The Hubble observations reveal that the nebula's shape is more complicated than astronomers thought. Image released May 23, 2013.

CREDIT: NASA, ESA, C.R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt University), and D. Thompson (Large Binocular Telescope Observatory)

The iconic Ring Nebula may seem like just a stunning circle of wispy interstellar gas, but new images from the Hubble Space Telescope reveal it to be more like a deep-space jelly doughnut, scientists say.

C. Robert O'Dell

The new Hubble telescope images have allowed astronomers to take their most detailed look at the Ring Nebula than ever before, revealing an unprecedented view of the nebula's three-dimensional structure.

"The nebula is not like a bagel, but rather, it's like a jelly doughnut, because it's filled with material in the middle," study leader C. Robert O'Dell, an astronomer with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., said in a statement today (May 23).

ESA Hubble Image: Jonckheere 900 Masquerading as a Double Star

The object in this image is Jonckheere 900 or J 900, a planetary nebula - glowing shells of ionized gas pushed out by a dying star. 

Discovered in the early 1900s by astronomer Robert Jonckheere, the dusty nebula is small but fairly bright, with a relatively evenly spread central region surrounded by soft wispy edges.

Despite the clarity of this Hubble image, the two objects in the picture above can be confusing for observers. 

J 900's nearby companion, a faint star in the constellation of Gemini, often causes problems for observers because it is so close to the nebula - when observation conditions are bad, this star seems to merge into J 900, giving it an elongated appearance. 

Hubble's position above the Earth's atmosphere means that this is not an issue for the space telescope.

Astronomers have also mistakenly reported observations of a double star in place of these two objects, as the planetary nebula is quite small and compact.

J 900's central star is only just visible in this image, and is very faint - fainter than the nebula's neighbor. 

The nebula appears to display a bipolar structure, where there are two distinct lobes of material emanating from its center, enclosed by a bright oval disk. 

Credit: Hubble/European Space Agency

ESA /NASA Hubble Image: Planetary Nebula NGC 5189

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this striking space wallpaper of the planetary nebula NGC 5189. 

The intricate structure of the stellar eruption looks like a giant and brightly coloured ribbon in space. This image was released Dec. 18, 2012.

Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

The Whirlpool Galaxy: NGC 5194

The Whirlpool Galaxy is a classic spiral galaxy. At only 30 million light years distant and fully 60 thousand light years across, M51, also known as NGC 5194, is one of the brightest and most picturesque galaxies on the sky. 

This image is a digital combination of a ground-based image from the 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory and a space-based image from the Hubble Space Telescope highlighting sharp features normally too red to be seen.

Image Credit: NASA/Hubble

ESA Hubble Image: Glowing Jet From A Young Sta

This image shows an object known as HH 151, a bright jet of glowing material trailed by an intricate, orange-hued plume of gas and dust. 

It is located some 460 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus (The Bull), near to the young, tumultuous star HL Tau.

In the first few hundred thousand years of life, new stars like HL Tau pull in material that falls towards them from the surrounding space. 

This material forms a hot disc that swirls around the coalescing body, launching narrow streams of material from its poles. 

These jets are shot out at speeds of several hundred kilometers (or miles) per second and collide violently with nearby clumps of dust and gas, creating wispy, billowing structures known as Herbig-Haro objects — like HH 151 seen in this image.

Such objects are very common in star-forming regions. They are short-lived, and their motion and evolution can actually be seen over very short timescales, on the order of years. 

They quickly race away from the newly-forming star that emitted them, colliding with new clumps of material and glowing brightly before fading away.

ESA/Hubble & NASA

ESA Hubble Image: Cosmic "Flying V" of Merging Galaxies

Image courtesy ESA/Hubble and NASA.

This large "flying V" is actually two distinct objects - a pair of interacting galaxies known as IC 2184.

Both the galaxies are seen almost edge-on in the large, faint northern constellation of Camelopardalis (The Giraffe), and can be seen as bright streaks of light surrounded by the ghostly shapes of their tidal tails.

These tidal tails are thin, elongated streams of gas, dust and stars that extend away from a galaxy into space.

They occur when galaxies gravitationally interact with one another, and material is sheared from the outer edges of each body and flung out into space in opposite directions, forming two tails.

They almost always appear curved, so when they are seen to be relatively straight, as in this image, it is clear that we are viewing the galaxies side-on.

Also visible in this image are bursts of bright blue, pinpointing hot regions where the colliding gas clouds stir up vigorous star formation.

The image consists of visible and infrared observations from Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.

NASA Hubble Image: M 106 - A spiral galaxy with a secret

This image combines Hubble observations of M 106 with additional information captured by amateur astronomers Robert Gendler and Jay GaBany. Gendler combined Hubble data with his own observations to produce this stunning colour image. M 106 is a relatively nearby spiral galaxy, a little over 20 million light-years away.

Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and R. Gendler (for the Hubble Heritage Team). Acknowledgment: J. GaBany, A van der Hoeven.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope - with a little help from an amateur astronomer - has produced one of the best views yet of nearby spiral galaxy Messier 106. Located a little over 20 million light-years away, practically a neighbour by cosmic standards, Messier 106 is one of the brightest and nearest spiral galaxies to our own.

Despite its appearance, which looks much like countless other galaxies, Messier 106 hides a number of secrets. Thanks to this image, which combines data from Hubble with observations by amateur astronomers Robert Gendler and Jay GaBany, they are revealed as never before.

At its heart, as in most spiral galaxies, is a supermassive black hole, but this one is particularly active. Unlike the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, which pulls in wisps of gas only occasionally, Messier 106's black hole is actively gobbling up material.

As the gas spirals towards the black hole, it heats up and emits powerful radiation. Part of the emission from the centre of Messier 106 is produced by a process that is somewhat similar to that in a laser - although here the process produces bright microwave radiation.

As well as this microwave emission from Messier 106's heart, the galaxy has another startling feature - instead of two spiral arms, it appears to have four. Although the second pair of arms can be seen in visible light images as ghostly wisps of gas, as in this image, they are even more prominent in observations made outside of the visible spectrum, such as those using X-ray or radio waves.

Unlike the normal arms, these two extra arms are made up of hot gas rather than stars, and their origin remained unexplained until recently. Astronomers think that these, like the microwave emission from the galactic centre, are caused by the black hole at Messier 106's heart, and so are a totally different phenomenon from the galaxy's normal, star-filled arms.

The extra arms appear to be an indirect result of jets of material produced by the violent churning of matter around the black hole. As these jets travel through the galactic matter they disrupt and heat up the surrounding gas, which in turn excites the denser gas in the galactic plane and causes it to glow brightly.

This denser gas closer to the centre of the galaxy is tightly-bound, and so the arms appear to be straight. However, the looser disc gas further out is blown above or below the disc in the opposite direction from the jet, so that the gas curves out of the disc - producing the arching red arms seen here.

NASA Hubble Image: Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1097

The Hubble Space Telescope captured a spectacular image of the bright star-forming ring that surrounds the heart of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1097, also known as Caldwell 67.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble

In this image, the larger-scale structure of the galaxy is barely visible: its comparatively dim spiral arms, which surround its heart in a loose embrace, reach out beyond the edges of this frame.

This face-on galaxy, lying 45 million light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), is particularly attractive for astronomers.

NGC 1097 is a Seyfert galaxy. Lurking at the very center of the galaxy, a supermassive black hole 100 million times the mass of our sun is gradually sucking in the matter around it.

The area immediately around the black hole shines powerfully with radiation coming from the material falling in.

The distinctive ring around the black hole is bursting with new star formation due to an inflow of material toward the central bar of the galaxy.

These star-forming regions are glowing brightly thanks to emission from clouds of ionized hydrogen.

The ring is around 5000 light-years across, although the spiral arms of the galaxy extend tens of thousands of light-years beyond it.

NASA Hubble Image: Planetary Nebula NGC 5189

This object is an expanding cloud of gas rushing away from a dying star. Right in the very center you can see the star itself, a tiny blue dot whose appearance belies its power.

Once a star like the Sun, the central star of NGC 5189 is now a dense, extremely hot cinder called a white dwarf.

It’s probably only the size of the Earth but is 100,000 times denser than our planet.

A few thousand years ago this star was dying.

It had swollen into a red giant, a huge, bloated thing that was expelling a strong, thick wind of gas into space.

Over time the star shrank and heated up, turning bluish and starting to blow a thinner but much faster wind.

The fast wind caught up with and slammed into the older, slower, thicker wind, carving out a cavity in it.

We call these kinds of clouds planetary nebulae, becasue through small telescopes some of them look round and green, like planets.

NASA Hubble Image: Eyes a Loose Spiral Galaxy

The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted the spiral galaxy ESO 499-G37, seen here against a backdrop of distant galaxies, scattered with nearby stars.

The galaxy is viewed from an angle, allowing Hubble to reveal its spiral nature clearly.

The faint, loose spiral arms can be distinguished as bluish features swirling around the galaxy’s nucleus.

This blue tinge emanates from the hot, young stars located in the spiral arms.

The arms of a spiral galaxy have large amounts of gas and dust, and are often areas where new stars are constantly forming.

The galaxy’s most characteristic feature is a bright elongated nucleus. The bulging central core usually contains the highest density of stars in the galaxy, where typically a large group of comparatively cool old stars are packed in this compact, spheroidal region.

One feature common to many spiral galaxies is the presence of a bar running across the center of the galaxy. These bars are thought to act as a mechanism that channels gas from the spiral arms to the center, enhancing the star formation.

Image Credit: NASA/Hubble