Dying Young: Massive Dead Disk Galaxy Challenges the Picture of How Galaxies Evolve
By combining the power of a “natural lens” in space with the capability of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers made a surprising discovery—the first example of very compact yet massive disk-shaped and rotating galaxy that stopped making stars only a few billion years after the big bang....
Hubble Pushed Beyond Limits to Spot Clumps of New Stars in Distant Galaxy
Gravitational lens helps reveal "fireworks" in the early universe When the universe was young, stars formed at a much higher rate than they do today. By peering across billions of light-years of space, Hubble can study this early era. But at such distances, galaxies shrink to smudges that hide...
Hubble Pushed Beyond Limits to Spot Clumps of New Stars in Distant Galaxy
Gravitational lens helps reveal "fireworks" in the early universe When the universe was young, stars formed at a much higher rate than they do today. By peering across billions of light-years of space, Hubble can study this early era. But at such distances, galaxies shrink to smudges that hide...
Observatories Combine to Crack Open the Crab Nebula
Colorful New Portrait Shows Energetic Details Embedded in Supernova Remnant In the summer of the year 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers saw a new "guest star," that appeared six times brighter than Venus. So bright in fact, it could be seen during the daytime for several months. Halfway around the...
Hubble Astronomers Develop a New Use for a Century-Old Relativity Experiment to Measure a White Dwarf's Mass
White dwarf shows how gravity can bend starlight Albert Einstein reshaped our understanding of the fabric of space. In his general theory of relativity in 1915, he proposed the revolutionary idea that massive objects warp space, due to the effects of gravity. Until that time, Isaac Newton's...
Hubble Astronomers Develop a New Use for a Century-Old Relativity Experiment to Measure a White Dwarf's Mass
White dwarf shows how gravity can bend starlight Albert Einstein reshaped our understanding of the fabric of space. In his general theory of relativity in 1915, he proposed the revolutionary idea that massive objects warp space, due to the effects of gravity. Until that time, Isaac Newton's...
Jackpot! Cosmic Magnifying-Glass Effect Captures Universe's Brightest Galaxies
Galaxies Shine with the Brilliance of up to 100 Trillion Suns Astronomers were fascinated in the 1980s with the discovery of nearby dust-enshrouded galaxies that glowed thousands of times brighter than our Milky Way galaxy in infrared light. Dubbed ultra-luminous infrared galaxies, they were...
Jackpot! Cosmic Magnifying-Glass Effect Captures Universe's Brightest Galaxies
Galaxies Shine with the Brilliance of up to 100 Trillion Suns Astronomers were fascinated in the 1980s with the discovery of nearby dust-enshrouded galaxies that glowed thousands of times brighter than our Milky Way galaxy in infrared light. Dubbed ultra-luminous infrared galaxies, they were...
Jackpot! Cosmic Magnifying-Glass Effect Captures Universe's Brightest Galaxies
Galaxies Shine with the Brilliance of up to 100 Trillion Suns Astronomers were fascinated in the 1980s with the discovery of nearby dust-enshrouded galaxies that glowed thousands of times brighter than our Milky Way galaxy in infrared light. Dubbed ultra-luminous infrared galaxies, they were...
Observatories Combine to Crack Open the Crab Nebula
Colorful New Portrait Shows Energetic Details Embedded in Supernova Remnant In the summer of the year 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers saw a new "guest star," that appeared six times brighter than Venus. So bright in fact, it could be seen during the daytime for several months. Halfway around the...
Observatories Combine to Crack Open the Crab Nebula
Colorful New Portrait Shows Energetic Details Embedded in Supernova Remnant In the summer of the year 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers saw a new "guest star," that appeared six times brighter than Venus. So bright in fact, it could be seen during the daytime for several months. Halfway around the...
Observatories Combine to Crack Open the Crab Nebula
Colorful New Portrait Shows Energetic Details Embedded in Supernova Remnant In the summer of the year 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers saw a new "guest star," that appeared six times brighter than Venus. So bright in fact, it could be seen during the daytime for several months. Halfway around the...
Observatories Combine to Crack Open the Crab Nebula
Colorful New Portrait Shows Energetic Details Embedded in Supernova Remnant In the summer of the year 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers saw a new "guest star," that appeared six times brighter than Venus. So bright in fact, it could be seen during the daytime for several months. Halfway around the...
Observatories Combine to Crack Open the Crab Nebula
Colorful New Portrait Shows Energetic Details Embedded in Supernova Remnant In the summer of the year 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers saw a new "guest star," that appeared six times brighter than Venus. So bright in fact, it could be seen during the daytime for several months. Halfway around the...
Observatories Combine to Crack Open the Crab Nebula
Colorful New Portrait Shows Energetic Details Embedded in Supernova Remnant In the summer of the year 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers saw a new "guest star," that appeared six times brighter than Venus. So bright in fact, it could be seen during the daytime for several months. Halfway around the...
Observatories Combine to Crack Open the Crab Nebula
Colorful New Portrait Shows Energetic Details Embedded in Supernova Remnant In the summer of the year 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers saw a new "guest star," that appeared six times brighter than Venus. So bright in fact, it could be seen during the daytime for several months. Halfway around the...
A Lot of Galaxies Need Guarding in This NASA Hubble View
Power of Massive Galaxy Cluster Harnessed to Probe Remote Galaxies in Early Universe Like the quirky characters in the upcoming film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has some amazing superpowers, specifically when it comes to observing galaxies across time and space....
A Lot of Galaxies Need Guarding in This NASA Hubble View
Power of Massive Galaxy Cluster Harnessed to Probe Remote Galaxies in Early Universe Like the quirky characters in the upcoming film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has some amazing superpowers, specifically when it comes to observing galaxies across time and space....
A Lot of Galaxies Need Guarding in This NASA Hubble View
Power of Massive Galaxy Cluster Harnessed to Probe Remote Galaxies in Early Universe Like the quirky characters in the upcoming film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has some amazing superpowers, specifically when it comes to observing galaxies across time and space....
A Lot of Galaxies Need Guarding in This NASA Hubble View
Power of Massive Galaxy Cluster Harnessed to Probe Remote Galaxies in Early Universe Like the quirky characters in the upcoming film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has some amazing superpowers, specifically when it comes to observing galaxies across time and space....
A New Angle on Two Spiral Galaxies for Hubble's 27th Birthday
Hubble Celebrates Its Anniversary with a Spectacular Pair of Galaxies When the Hubble Space Telescope launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990, astronomers could only dream what they might see. Now, 27 years and more than a million observations later, the telescope...
Collapsing Star Gives Birth to a Black Hole
Massive Dying Star Goes Out With a Whimper Instead of a Bang Every second a star somewhere out in the universe explodes as a supernova. But some super-massive stars go out with a whimper instead of a bang. When they do, they can collapse under the crushing tug of gravity and vanish out of sight,...
Collapsing Star Gives Birth to a Black Hole
Massive Dying Star Goes Out With a Whimper Instead of a Bang Every second a star somewhere out in the universe explodes as a supernova. But some super-massive stars go out with a whimper instead of a bang. When they do, they can collapse under the crushing tug of gravity and vanish out of sight,...
Massive Star Goes Out With a Whimper Instead of a Bang (Artist's Illustration)
This illustration shows the final stages in the life of a supermassive star that fails to explode as a supernova but instead implodes under gravity to form a black hole. From left to right: the massive star has evolved to a red supergiant, the envelope of the star is ejected and expands,...
Hubble Spots Moon Around Third Largest Dwarf Planet
Most of the dwarf planets now have known moons Beyond the orbit of Neptune lies a frigid, dark, vast frontier of countless icy bodies left over from the solar system's construction 4.6 billion years ago. This region, called the Kuiper Belt, was hypothesized by astronomer Gerard Kuiper in 1951....
Hubble Spots Moon Around Third Largest Dwarf Planet
Most of the dwarf planets now have known moons Beyond the orbit of Neptune lies a frigid, dark, vast frontier of countless icy bodies left over from the solar system's construction 4.6 billion years ago. This region, called the Kuiper Belt, was hypothesized by astronomer Gerard Kuiper in 1951....
Hubble Spots Moon Around Third Largest Dwarf Planet
Most of the dwarf planets now have known moons Beyond the orbit of Neptune lies a frigid, dark, vast frontier of countless icy bodies left over from the solar system's construction 4.6 billion years ago. This region, called the Kuiper Belt, was hypothesized by astronomer Gerard Kuiper in 1951....
Search For Stellar Survivor of a Supernova Explosion
Star might answer question of how white dwarfs explode Of all the varieties of exploding stars, the ones called Type Ia are perhaps the most intriguing. Their predictable brightness lets astronomers measure the expansion of the universe, which led to the discovery of dark energy. Yet the cause...
Hubble Spots Possible Venting Activity on Europa
Best Evidence Yet for Reoccurring Water Vapor Plumes Erupting from Jupiter’s Moon When Galileo discovered Jupiter's moon Europa in 1610, along with three other satellites whirling around the giant planet, he could have barely imagined it was such a world of wonder. This revelation didn't...
Hubble Spots Possible Venting Activity on Europa
Best Evidence Yet for Reoccurring Water Vapor Plumes Erupting from Jupiter’s Moon When Galileo discovered Jupiter's moon Europa in 1610, along with three other satellites whirling around the giant planet, he could have barely imagined it was such a world of wonder. This revelation didn't...
Hubble Spots Possible Venting Activity on Europa
Best Evidence Yet for Reoccurring Water Vapor Plumes Erupting from Jupiter’s Moon When Galileo discovered Jupiter's moon Europa in 1610, along with three other satellites whirling around the giant planet, he could have barely imagined it was such a world of wonder. This revelation didn't...
Hubble Spots Possible Venting Activity on Europa
Best Evidence Yet for Reoccurring Water Vapor Plumes Erupting from Jupiter’s Moon When Galileo discovered Jupiter's moon Europa in 1610, along with three other satellites whirling around the giant planet, he could have barely imagined it was such a world of wonder. This revelation didn't...
Hubble Spots Possible Venting Activity on Europa
Best Evidence Yet for Reoccurring Water Vapor Plumes Erupting from Jupiter’s Moon When Galileo discovered Jupiter's moon Europa in 1610, along with three other satellites whirling around the giant planet, he could have barely imagined it was such a world of wonder. This revelation didn't...
A New Angle on Two Spiral Galaxies for Hubble's 27th Birthday
Hubble Celebrates Its Anniversary with a Spectacular Pair of Galaxies When the Hubble Space Telescope launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990, astronomers could only dream what they might see. Now, 27 years and more than a million observations later, the telescope...
Hubble Takes Close-up Portrait of Jupiter
Majestic Giant Planet is a Swirl of Colorful Clouds Named after the Roman king of the gods, the immense planet Jupiter is undoubtedly king of the solar system. Containing more mass than all the other planets combined, Jupiter's immense gravitational field deflects wayward comets that otherwise...
Hubble Takes Close-up Portrait of Jupiter
Majestic Giant Planet is a Swirl of Colorful Clouds Named after the Roman king of the gods, the immense planet Jupiter is undoubtedly king of the solar system. Containing more mass than all the other planets combined, Jupiter's immense gravitational field deflects wayward comets that otherwise...
The Dawn of a New Era for Supernova 1987A
In February 1987, on a mountaintop in Chile, telescope operator Oscar Duhalde stood outside the observatory at Las Campanas and looked up at the clear night sky. There, in a hazy-looking patch of brightness in the sky — the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a neighboring galaxy - was a bright star he...
Gravitational Wave Kicks Monster Black Hole Out Of Galactic Core
Runaway black hole is the most massive ever detected far from its central home Normally, hefty black holes anchor the centers of galaxies. So researchers were surprised to discover a supermassive black hole speeding through the galactic suburbs. Black holes cannot be observed directly, but they...
Gravitational Wave Kicks Monster Black Hole Out Of Galactic Core
Runaway black hole is the most massive ever detected far from its central home Normally, hefty black holes anchor the centers of galaxies. So researchers were surprised to discover a supermassive black hole speeding through the galactic suburbs. Black holes cannot be observed directly, but they...
Hubble Discovery of Runaway Star Yields Clues to Breakup of Multiple-Star System
Star Is Missing Link to a System that Flew Apart Over 500 Years Ago In the 1400s, two power struggles were taking place quadrillions of miles apart. In England, two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet were battling each other for control of the country's throne. And, in a nebula...
Hubble Discovery of Runaway Star Yields Clues to Breakup of Multiple-Star System
Star Is Missing Link to a System that Flew Apart Over 500 Years Ago In the 1400s, two power struggles were taking place quadrillions of miles apart. In England, two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet were battling each other for control of the country's throne. And, in a nebula...
Hubble Discovery of Runaway Star Yields Clues to Breakup of Multiple-Star System
Star Is Missing Link to a System that Flew Apart Over 500 Years Ago In the 1400s, two power struggles were taking place quadrillions of miles apart. In England, two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet were battling each other for control of the country's throne. And, in a nebula...
Hubble Reveals Observable Universe Contains 10 Times More Galaxies Than Previously Thought
In Arthur C. Clarke's novel "2001: A Space Odyssey," astronaut David Bowman exclaims, "My God, it's full of stars!" before he gets pulled into an alien-built wormhole in space. When the Hubble Space Telescope made its deepest views of the universe, astronomers might have well exclaimed: "My God,...
Festive Nebulas Light Up Milky Way Galaxy Satellite
Two glowing nebulas in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is a satellite of our Milky Way galaxy, have been observed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Young, brilliant stars at the center of each nebula are heating hydrogen, causing these clouds of gas and dust to glow red. The image...
Hubble Captures 'Shadow Play' Caused by Possible Planet
Shadow on TW Hydrae's Disk These images, taken a year apart by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, reveal a shadow moving counterclockwise around a gas-and-dust disk encircling the young star TW Hydrae. The two images at the top, taken by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, show an uneven...
A Death Star's Ghostly Glow
In writer Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart," a killer confesses his crime after he thinks he hears the beating of his victim's heart. The heartbeat turns out to be an illusion. Astronomers, however, discovered a real "tell-tale heart" in space, 6,500 light-years from Earth. The...
A Death Star's Ghostly Glow
In writer Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart," a killer confesses his crime after he thinks he hears the beating of his victim's heart. The heartbeat turns out to be an illusion. Astronomers, however, discovered a real "tell-tale heart" in space, 6,500 light-years from Earth. The...
Hubble Takes Close-up Look at Disintegrating Comet
Comet 332P/Ikeya-Murakami survived for 4.5 billion years in the frigid Kuiper Belt, a vast reservoir of icy bodies on the outskirts of our solar system. The objects are the leftovers from our solar system's construction. But within the last few million years, the unlucky comet was gravitationally...
Hubble Takes Close-up Look at Disintegrating Comet
Comet 332P/Ikeya-Murakami survived for 4.5 billion years in the frigid Kuiper Belt, a vast reservoir of icy bodies on the outskirts of our solar system. The objects are the leftovers from our solar system's construction. But within the last few million years, the unlucky comet was gravitationally...
Two is company, but three might not always be a crowd, at least in space. When astronomers found an extrasolar planet orbiting a neighboring star, a detailed analysis of the data uncovered a third body. But astronomers couldn't definitively identify whether the object was another planet or...
Hubble Takes Close-up Look at Disintegrating Comet
Comet 332P/Ikeya-Murakami survived for 4.5 billion years in the frigid Kuiper Belt, a vast reservoir of icy bodies on the outskirts of our solar system. The objects are the leftovers from our solar system's construction. But within the last few million years, the unlucky comet was gravitationally...
Hubble Spots Possible Water Plumes Erupting on Jupiter's Moon Europa
New findings from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show suspected water plumes erupting from Jupiter's icy moon Europa. These observations bolster earlier Hubble work suggesting that Europa is venting water vapor. A team of astronomers, led by William Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute...
Hubble Spots Possible Water Plumes Erupting on Jupiter's Moon Europa
New findings from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show suspected water plumes erupting from Jupiter's icy moon Europa. These observations bolster earlier Hubble work suggesting that Europa is venting water vapor. A team of astronomers, led by William Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute...
Hubble Uncovers a Galaxy Pair Coming in from the Wilderness
The galaxies in the early universe were much smaller than our Milky Way and churned out stars at a rapid pace. They grew larger through mergers with other dwarf galaxies to eventually build the magnificent spiral and elliptical galaxies we see around us today. But astronomers using the Hubble...
Hubble Uncovers a Galaxy Pair Coming in from the Wilderness
The galaxies in the early universe were much smaller than our Milky Way and churned out stars at a rapid pace. They grew larger through mergers with other dwarf galaxies to eventually build the magnificent spiral and elliptical galaxies we see around us today. But astronomers using the Hubble...
Hubble Sees a Star 'Inflating' a Giant Bubble
Twenty-six candles grace NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's birthday cake this year, and now one giant space "balloon" will add to the festivities. Just in time for the 26th anniversary of Hubble's launch on April 24, 1990, the telescope has photographed an enormous, balloon-like bubble being blown...
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the TV series "Star Trek" has captured the public's imagination with the signature phrase, "To boldly go where no one has gone before." The Hubble Space Telescope simply orbits Earth and doesn't "boldly go" deep into space. But it looks deeper into the...
NASA's Hubble Looks to the Final Frontier
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the TV series "Star Trek" has captured the public's imagination with the signature phrase, "To boldly go where no one has gone before." The Hubble Space Telescope simply orbits Earth and doesn't "boldly go" deep into space. But it looks deeper into the...
Hubble Captures the Beating Heart of the Crab Nebula
At the center of the Crab Nebula, located in the constellation Taurus, lies a celestial "beating heart" that is an example of extreme physics in space. The tiny object blasts out blistering pulses of radiation 30 times a second with unbelievable clock-like precision. Astronomers soon figured out...
Hubble Captures Vivid Auroras in Jupiter's Atmosphere
Astronomers are using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to study auroras — stunning light shows in a planet's atmosphere — on the poles of the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter. The auroras were photographed during a series of Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph...
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NASA’s Universe of Learning materials are based upon work supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AC65A to the Space Telescope Science Institute, working in partnership with Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The award is part of NASA’s Science Activation program, which strives to further enable NASA science experts and content into the learning environment more effectively and efficiently with learners of all ages.