All articles tagged with #hubble
A new Hubble image of the barred spiral galaxy IC 486, about 380 million light-years away, shows vivid regions of new star formation around the central bar and the bright active galactic nucleus powered by a supermassive black hole, highlighting how barred structures influence galactic growth; citizen scientists via Galaxy Zoo contributed to the study under ESA/Hubble.
NASA/ESA/Hubble and the Webb Space Telescope release infrared and visible images of Saturn, revealing layered clouds, storms, and the bright icy rings. By comparing wavelengths, scientists can probe Saturn’s atmosphere at multiple depths and track seasonal changes as the planet moves toward the 2025 equinox.
The Hubble Space Telescope marks 36 years in orbit, overcoming an early blurry image issue with five servicing missions, and accumulating nearly 1.7 million observations that spurred more than 22,000 papers and 1.3 million citations. Its Deep Field images helped redefine cosmic age, expansion, dark energy, exoplanet atmospheres, and the presence of supermassive black holes, while inspiring a generation and guiding future observatories like the Habitable Worlds Observatory. Hubble’s enduring, serviceable design and public imagery have made it a lasting scientific and cultural icon, with a legacy that continues as it works alongside the James Webb Space Telescope and beyond.
Eric Schmidt and family back the Lazuli Space Telescope, a privately funded 3-meter optical/infrared observatory with a $500 million price tag that could launch in 3–5 years; operating from a lunar-resonant orbit to enable rapid target responses, it includes a coronagraph for exoplanet discovery and will release science-ready data quickly to the global community, potentially outpacing traditional government missions.
Using a combined Hubble and Euclid view, the Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is shown in new detail: Hubble reveals the intricate core with concentric shells and jets from episodic mass loss of the dying star, while Euclid’s wide-field imaging places it among distant galaxies about 4,300 light-years away in Draco.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured the largest known protoplanetary disk around the young star IRAS 23077+6707 (nicknamed Dracula’s Chivito), extending about 400 billion miles—roughly 40 times the Solar System’s diameter. Seen nearly edge-on in visible light, the disk is unusually turbulent and asymmetric, with filament-like features on one side and a sharp edge on the other, hinting at dynamic infall of material and environmental interactions. With an estimated mass 10–30 times Jupiter’s, the system may host a large planetary system and provides a valuable laboratory for understanding planet formation in extreme conditions.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captures Lupus 3, a nearby star-forming molecular cloud in Scorpius, bustling with newborn stars. The multi-wavelength image reveals blue reflection nebulosity and dark dust lanes as T Tauri stars (under 10 million years old) emerge from collapsing gas, illustrating the early stages of stellar birth in this nearby stellar nursery.
A neural network named AnomalyMatch scanned nearly 100 million image cutouts from the Hubble Legacy Archive in about 2.5 days, flagging roughly 1,400 candidate anomalies. Human researchers reviewed the top results and confirmed more than 1,300 as true anomalies, including over 800 objects not previously documented, such as merging galaxies, gravitational lenses, jellyfish galaxies, and distant edge-on disks, showcasing AI's power to accelerate discovery in massive astronomical datasets.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope delivers a sharper infrared view of the Helix Nebula, the nearby planetary nebula nicknamed the Eye of Sauron, revealing about 40,000 cometary knots as the dying star sheds its outer layers. The image, updating Hubble's famed portrait, shows how the gas glows under the nebula’s radiation and how the knots persist against the expanding wind. The Helix lies ~650 light-years away and will fade over the next 10,000–20,000 years as the gas disperses, offering a glimpse of the Sun's eventual fate as a red giant that becomes a white dwarf.
The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, is nearing the end of its operational life due to orbital decay accelerated by solar activity, with potential reentry as early as 2029. NASA has attempted to extend its lifespan, but without intervention, Hubble may soon be lost, creating a gap in space observation. However, the upcoming Lazuli telescope, funded by private sources and planned for launch in 2028, aims to succeed Hubble with advanced capabilities.
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered 'Cloud-9,' a starless, gas-rich dark matter cloud that is a relic of early galaxy formation, providing new insights into dark matter and the universe's primordial structures.
New Hubble data reveals that interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is exhibiting unexpected organized behavior, including a stable anti-tail and emerging jet structures, challenging typical comet explanations and suggesting a more complex system.
Hubble images from December 2025 reveal that the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is emitting two stable, narrow jets in different directions, challenging simple explanations and suggesting complex internal activity or delayed heating effects as it exits the solar system, raising questions about its rotation, structure, and behavior beyond typical comet models.
A comparison of images of Halley's Comet from 1986 and the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS from 2025 reveals that despite technological advances, the newer Hubble image of 3I/ATLAS appears less detailed and more diffuse, raising questions about resolution and transparency in space imaging.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured images of two massive cosmic collisions near the star Fomalhaut, revealing dust clouds from space rocks at least 37 miles wide. These rare observations suggest such collisions may be more common than previously thought, providing valuable insights into planet formation processes.