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Hubble's 17th anniversary -- extreme star birth in the Carina Nebula
April 25, 2007Hubble's new view of the Carina Nebula shows the process of star birth at a new level of detail. The bizarre landscape of the nebula is sculpted by the action of outflowing winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars that inhabit this inferno. These stars are shredding the surrounding material that is the last vestige of the giant cloud from which the stars were born.
This immense nebula contains a dozen or more brilliant stars that are estimated to be at least 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun. The most opulent is the star eta Carinae, seen at far left. Eta Carinae is in the final stages of its brief eruptive lifespan, as shown by two billowing lobes of gas and dust that presage its upcoming explosion as a titanic supernova.
The hurricane-strength blast of stellar winds and blistering ultraviolet radiation within the cavity is now compressing the surrounding walls of cold hydrogen. This is triggering a second stage of new star formation.
Our Sun and Solar System may have been born inside such a cosmic crucible 4.6 billion years ago. In looking at the Carina Nebula we are seeing star formation as it commonly occurs along the dense spiral arms of a galaxy.
This immense nebula is an estimated 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina, the Keel of the old southern constellation Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts from Greek mythology.
This image is an immense (29,566 x 14,321 pixels) mosaic of the Carina Nebula assembled from 48 frames taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The Hubble images were taken in the light of neutral hydrogen. Colour information was added with data taken at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Red corresponds to sulphur, green to hydrogen, and blue to oxygen emission.
ESA/Hubble Information Centre
Hubble Current Events and Hubble News RSSBaffling boxy bulge
When targeting spiral galaxy bulges, astronomers often seek edge-on galaxies, as their bulges are more easily distinguishable from the disc.
Goddard team develops new carriers for space station
In a partnership that exemplifies One NASA, engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. teamed up with engineers at NASA's Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers to design, build, and test five new ExPRESS Logistics Carriers, or ELCs, which will be delivered to the International Space Station.
Rapid star formation spotted in 'stellar nurseries' of infant galaxies
The Universe's infant galaxies enjoyed rapid growth spurts forming stars like our sun at a rate of up to 50 stars a year, according to scientists at Durham University.
'Dropouts' pinpoint earliest galaxies
Astronomers, conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang, have found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by its characteristic hydrogen signature at 787 million years post Big Bang.
Opening up a colorful cosmic jewel box
Star clusters are among the most visually alluring and astrophysically fascinating objects in the sky. One of the most spectacular nestles deep in the southern skies near the Southern Cross in the constellation of Crux.
Scientists use world's fastest supercomputer to model origins of the unseen universe
Understanding dark energy is the number one issue in explaining the universe, according to Salman Habib, of the Laboratory's Nuclear and Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology group.
Stripped down: Hubble highlights 2 galaxies that are losing it
Ram pressure is the drag force that results when something moves through a fluid - much like the wind you feel in your face when bicycling, even on a still day - and occurs in this context as galaxies orbiting about the centre of the cluster move through the intra-cluster medium, which then sweeps out gas from within the galaxies.
Rebirth of an icon: Hubble's first images since Servicing Mission 4
Astronomers today declared the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope a fully rejuvenated observatory ready for a new decade of exploration, with the release of observations from four of its six operating science instruments.
Astronomers find coldest, driest, calmest place on Earth
The search for the best observatory site in the world has lead to the discovery of what is thought to be the coldest, driest, calmest place on Earth.
Astronomers discover stars in early galaxies had a need for speed
A team of astronomers has measured the motions of stars in a very distant galaxy for the first time and discovered they are whizzing around at astonishingly high speeds-about one million miles per hour, or twice the speed at which the Sun circles our own Milky Way galaxy.
More Hubble Current Events and Hubble News Articles
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Hubble: Imaging Space and Time by David Devorkin (Author), Robert Smith (Author) In the spirit of National Geographic’s top-selling Orbit, this large-format, full-color volume stands alone in revealing more than 200 of the most spectacular images from the Hubble Space Telescope during its lifetime, to the very eve of the 2008 final shuttle mission to the telescope. Written by two of the world’s foremost authorities on space history, Hubble: Imaging Space and Time illuminates the solar system’s workings, the expansion of the universe, the birth and death of stars, the formation of planetary nebulae, the dynamics of galaxies, and the mysterious force known as "dark energy." The potential impact of this book cannot be overstressed: The 2008 servicing mission to install new high-powered scientific instruments is especially high profile because the... |
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Hubble: The Mirror on the Universe by Robin Kerrod (Author), Carole Stott (Author), David S. Leckrone (Foreword) The latest photos from Hubble's recent discoveries, with fascinating new and updated information. After 17 years, 25,000 astronomical targets and more than 700,000 images, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) continues to return images and data that amaze astronomers. Within the past few months alone, the Hubble has revealed a gold mine of just-formed star systems in the newborn Universe, provided detailed views of a second red spot emerging on Jupiter, and confirmed that monster black holes lurk at the center of galaxies. This brand new and updated edition features: 80 new full-color images A new introduction that reveals Hubble's future The data behind Pluto's recent demotion to non-planetary status Hubble's most important and fascinating new discoveries ... |
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Hubble: 15 Years of Discovery by Lars Lindberg Christensen (Author), Robert A. Fosbury (Author), M. Kornmesser (Illustrator) Hubble: 15 Years of Discovery forms a key element of the European Space Agency's 15th anniversary celebration activities for the 1990 launch of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. As an observatory in space, Hubble is one of the most successful scientific projects of all time, both in terms of scientific output and its immediate public appeal. Hubble continues to have an enormous impact by exploiting a unique scientific niche where no other instruments can compete. It consistently delivers super-sharp images and clean, uncontaminated spectra over the entire near-infrared and ultraviolet regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. This has opened up new scientific territory and resulted in many paradigm-breaking discoveries. |
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Universe: Images from the Hubble Telescope by Leo Marriott (Author) |
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The Universe in a Mirror: The Saga of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Visionaries Who Built It by Robert Zimmerman (Author) The Hubble Space Telescope has produced the most stunning images of the cosmos humanity has ever seen. It has transformed our understanding of the universe around us, revealing new information about its age and evolution, the life cycle of stars, and the very existence of black holes, among other startling discoveries. The Universe in a Mirror tells the story of this telescope and the visionaries responsible for its extraordinary accomplishments. Robert Zimmerman takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most ambitious scientific instruments ever sent into space. After World War II, astronomer Lyman Spitzer and a handful of scientists waged a fifty-year struggle to build the first space telescope capable of seeing beyond Earth's atmospheric veil. Zimmerman shows how many of... |
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The Visible Universe: A Visual Journey Through Space and Back in Time. NASA - Hubble Space Telescope Starring: Super Nova Directed By: David DeMarcos Also With: David DeMarcos (Producer) NTSC North American Format Updated 2009 - Includes:
The Visible Universe presents a visual journey through space and back in time using the greatest optical instruments ever created in the history of man. The Hubble Space Telescope, SOHO, Trace, Spitzer, and other instruments have afforded us an insight to the farthest reaches of the Cosmos. Carl Sagan The producer hopes that this progressive music video will entertain and inspire our children to further... |
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Servicing the Hubble Space Telescope: Shuttle Atlantis - 2009 by Dennis R. Jenkins (Author), Jorge R. Frank (Author) Few NASA announcements stirred as much public controversy as when NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe canceled the fifth Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. On January 16, 2004, the outcry from the scientific community and general public was surprising, coming less than a year after Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry. Launched by Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990, Hubble has circled Earth more than 97,000 times and provided more than 4,000 astronomers access to the stars not possible from inside the Earth's atmosphere. Hubble has helped answer some of science's key questions and provided compelling images of our solar system that have awed and inspired the world. Fortunately, things change. After further evaluation, the agency authorized the last servicing mission to... |
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Hubble Space Telescope 2010 Wall Calendar by Wyman Publishing (Author) This calendar is filled with stunning images of the universe that surrounds us, captured by the marvelous Hubble Telescope. |
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Magnificent Universe by Ken Croswell (Author) The awesome wonder of the cosmos has inspired the human imagination for millennia: what we learn about the cosmos tells us not just where we are, but who we are and now, at the turn of this millennium, thanks to science and technology that were unimaginable only a century ago, a rich new portrait of our universe has emerged. Magnificent Universe is the most complete, authoritative, and lavish celebration of the heavens ever created. No other book approaches its range of photographs, produced with uncompromising quality on a majestic scale. With more than one hundred full-color portraits, Magnificent Universe allows you to experience for yourself the beauty of the planets, moons, comets, constellations, stellar nurseries, red giants, WP, spiral galaxies, and quasars -- all the way... |
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Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe by Mark Voit (Author) How did the universe begin? How big is it? What is it made of? What is its ultimate fate? These are some of the questions that scientists have been investigating with the Hubble Space Telescope since its launch in 1990. Not only is Hubble providing us with an unprecedented amount of information about the universe, but its breathtaking images-disseminated in the press and over the Internet-have excited more people around the world than any other images made in the last decade. This fabulous, poster-size paperback on Hubble's dramatic discoveries-prepared to accompany a major Smithsonian Institution exhibition that will travel across the United States for several years-presents the awesome Hubble images of nebulae, emerging stars, and other celestial phenomena that have electrified us... |
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