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This image from the Wide Field Imager (WFI) on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile reveals a cloud of hydrogen and newborn stars called Gum 41. In the middle of this little-known nebula, brilliant hot young stars emit energetic radiation that causes the surrounding hydrogen to glow with a characteristic red hue.
Artist's Impression of the Famous Exoplanet Tau Boötis b | ESO
This video based on an artist's impression shows the exoplanet Tau Boötis b. This was one of the first exoplanets to be discovered back in 1996, and it is still one of the closest planetary systems known to date.
Distance: about 51 light-years away
Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) have caught and studied the faint light from the planet Tau Boötis b for the first time. By employing a clever observational trick the team find that the planet's atmosphere seems to be cooler higher up, the opposite of what was expected.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/L. Calçada
This zoom sequence starts with a wide view of the constellation of Bootes (The Herdsman) and the closes in on the star Tau Bootis, which is visible to the unaided eye as an unremarkable point of light in the southern part of the constellation. This star harbors one of the closest exoplanets, and one of the first to be found, in 1996. Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope have caught and studied the faint light from the planet Tau Boötis b for the first time. By employing a clever observational trick the team find that the planet's atmosphere seems to be cooler higher up, the opposite of what was expected.
Distance: about 51 light-years away
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/A. Fujii/Digitized Sky Survey 2
This image of the sky around star Tau Boötis was created from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 images. The star itself, which is bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye, is at the center. The spikes and colored circles around it are artifacts of the telescope and photographic plate used and are not real.
Distance: about 51 light-years away
The exoplanet Tau Boötis b orbits very close to the star and is completely invisible in this picture. The planet has only just been detected directly from its own light using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT).
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/Digitized Sky Survey 2
Dark Mattter Map for Galaxy Cluster Abell 1689 | Hubble
This NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope image shows the distribution of dark matter in the center of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 1689, containing about 1,000 galaxies and trillions of stars. Abell 1689 resides 2.2 billion light-years from Earth.
Dark matter is an invisible form of matter that accounts for most of the universe's mass. Hubble cannot see the dark matter directly. Astronomers inferred its location by analyzing the effect of gravitational lensing, where light from galaxies behind Abell 1689 is distorted by intervening matter within the cluster.
Researchers used the observed positions of 135 lensed images of 42 background galaxies to calculate the location and amount of dark matter in the cluster. They superimposed a map of these inferred dark matter concentrations, tinted blue, on an image of the cluster taken by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. If the cluster's gravity came only from the visible galaxies, the lensing distortions would be much weaker. The map reveals that the densest concentration of dark matter is in the cluster's core.
The image was taken in June 2002.
Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Coe (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, and Space Telescope Science Institute), N. Benítez (Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucía, Spain), T. Broadhurst (University of the Basque Country, Spain), and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University, USA)
Peering around Cosmic Corners with Gravitational Lensing | Hubble
Hubblecast 70: The Hubble observing program Frontier Fields used the powerful magnifying properties of massive galaxy clusters to peer even deeper into the space around us. Hubblecast 70 takes a look at this phenomenon—known as gravitational lensing—exploring how it works, and how it can help us to uncover the secrets of the very distant Universe.
Credits: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble
Directed by: Nicola Guttridge
Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser
Written by: Nicola Guttridge & Georgia Bladon
Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J)
Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa
Images and animations: ESA/Hubble, NASA, Martin Kornmesser
* Clips from Hubble IMAX 3D video “Hubble: Galaxies Across Space and Time”. Credit: NASA, ESA and F. Summers (STScI)
* The Hubble Deep Fields
* Milky Way animation, gravitational lens animations: M. Kornmesser
* Gravitational lensing in action: NASA, ESA & L. Calçada
* Image of Abell 383 (heic1106a): NASA, ESA, J. Richard (CRAL) and J.-P. Kneib (LAM). Acknowledgement: Marc Postman (STScI)
* Image of Abell 1689 (heic1317a): NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Blakeslee (NRC Herzberg Astrophysics Program, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory), and H. Ford (JHU)
* Abell 370 (heic0910b): NASA, ESA, the Hubble SM4 ERO Team and ST-ECF
* Abell 2218 (heic0814a): NASA, ESA, and Johan Richard (Caltech, USA). Acknowledgement: Davide de Martin & James Long (ESA/Hubble)
* RCS2 032727-132623 (opo1208a): NASA, ESA, J. Rigby (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), K. Sharon (Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago), and M. Gladders and E. Wuyts (University of Chicago)
* Images of Einstein rings (heic0806): NASA, ESA, C. Faure (Zentrum für Astronomie, University of Heidelberg) and J.P. Kneib (Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille)
* Images of double ring (heic0803): NASA, ESA, R. Gavazzi and T. Treu (University of California, Santa Barbara), and the SLACS team
* Gravitational telescope creates space invader mirage (heic1304). NASA & ESA. Acknowledgement: N. Rose
* Hubble captures a 'five-star' rated gravitational lens (heic0606): European Space Agency, NASA, Keren Sharon (Tel-Aviv University) and Eran Ofek (CalTech)
Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida
Hubble Uncovers One of the Youngest and Brightest Galaxies in the Early Universe
A massive cluster of yellowish galaxies is seemingly caught in a spider's web of eerily distorted background galaxies in the first image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope.
The gravity of the cluster's trillion stars acts as a cosmic "zoom lens", bending and magnifying the light of the galaxies located far behind it, a technique called gravitational lensing. The faraway galaxies appear in the Hubble image as arc-shaped objects around the cluster, named Abell 1689. The increased magnification allows astronomers to study remote galaxies in greater detail.
One galaxy is so far away, however, it does not show up in the visible-light image taken with ACS (top, right), because its light is stretched to invisible infrared wavelengths by the Universe's expansion.
Astronomers used Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope with its Infrared Array Camera (IRAC)—with help from the gravitational lensing cluster—to see the faraway galaxy.
The distant galaxy, dubbed A1689-zD1, appears as a greyish-white smudge in the close-up view taken with Hubble's NICMOS (center, right), and as a whitish blob in the Spitzer IRAC close-up view (bottom, right). The galaxy is brimming with star birth. Hubble and Spitzer worked together to show that it is one of the youngest galaxies ever discovered. Astronomers estimate that the galaxy is 13 billion light-years away. Abell 1689 is 2.2 billion light-years away.
A1689-zD1 was born during the middle of the "dark ages", a period in the early universe when the first stars and galaxies were just beginning to burst to life. The dark ages lasted from about 400,000 to roughly a billion years after the Big Bang. Astronomers think that A1689-zD1 was one of the galaxies that helped end the dark ages.
The ACS images inserted into the first picture were taken in 2002, the NICMOS images in 2005 and 2007, and the Spitzer IRAC images in 2006.
In the second image, the view includes infrared light images from the WFC3 instrument on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope as well as visible light views. It shows a close up look at part of the rich galaxy cluster Abell 1689. The huge concentration of mass bends light coming from more distant objects and can increase their total apparent brightness and make them visible. One such object, A1689-zD1, appears on this picture as the elongated reddish object in the box.
New observations with ALMA and ESO’s VLT have revealed that A1689-zD1 is a dusty galaxy seen when the Universe was just 700 million years old. Its light has been magnified by a factor of more than nine by the massive gravitational lensing effect of the cluster.
Image 1 Credit: NASA; ESA; L. Bradley (Johns Hopkins University); R. Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz); H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University); and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz)
Release Date: February 12, 2008
Image 2 Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/J. Richard
This video pans across a new Hubble image of galaxy cluster Abell 1689. 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, the remote galaxy A1689-zD1.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Blakeslee (NRC Herzberg Astrophysics Program, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory), and H. Ford (JHU)
Zoom into Galaxy Cluster Abell 1689 and a Remote Dusty Galaxy | Hubble
A zoom into the galaxy cluster Abell 1689. The NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope, with a boost from the natural gravitational lensing of this cluster, can faintly detect the remote galaxy A1689-zD1 seen just 700 million years after the beginning of our Universe. This object has been detected by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and had its distance measured using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT).
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)
This spectacular view from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope shows the rich galaxy cluster Abell 1689. The huge concentration of mass bends light coming from more distant objects and can increase their total apparent brightness and make them visible. One such object, A1689-zD1, is located in the box—although it is still so faint that it is barely seen in this picture.
New observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed that this object is a dusty galaxy seen when the Universe was just 700 million years old.
Credit: NASA; ESA; L. Bradley (Johns Hopkins University); R. Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz); H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University); and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz)
An Orbital Sunrise above the Atlantic Ocean | International Space Station
The International Space Station flies into an orbital sunrise 261 miles above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of northwestern Spain.
Expedition 67 Crew
Commander Oleg Artemyev (Russia)
Roscosmos Flight Engineers: Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov (Russia)
NASA Flight Engineers: Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins (USA)
European Space Agency (ESA) Flight Engineer: Samantha Cristoforetti (Italy)
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
Globular Cluster Messier 9: Wide-field View (ground-based image)
This image from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 shows a wide-field view of globular cluster Messier 9 and its surroundings, imaged by a ground-based telescope. The dark patches are clouds of interstellar dust. Immediately to the right of Messier 9 is the dark cloud Barnard 64.
This video pans across Hubble observations of globular cluster Messier 9. This ball of stars (Hubble sees over 250,000 of them) is located towards the center of our galaxy. A wide palette of colors is visible here, a testament to the varied temperatures of the stars in the cluster. Red stars are cooler, while blue ones are hotter.
This video zooms in from a wide field image of the night sky into globular cluster Messier 9, ending on Hubble's image. Hubble's detailed image of this star city resolves over 250,000 individual stars.
Distance:25,000 light years
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), Digitized Sky Survey 2, N. Risinger
This image from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope shows the globular cluster Messier 9. Hubble’s image resolves stars right into the center of the cluster, and clearly shows they have different colors. Redder colors signify lower surface temperatures, while blue stars are extremely hot.
Yellow Hypergiant Star HR 5171: Artist's Impression | ESO
This artist's animation shows the yellow hypergiant star HR 5171. This is a very rare type of star and only a dozen are known in our galaxy. Its size is over 1,300 times that of the Sun—one of the ten biggest stars found so far.
Observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Interferometer have shown that it is actually a double star, with the companion in contact with the main star.
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