Announcements

22 June 2011: This joint episode of the Hubblecast and ESOcast presents Abell 2744, an unusual cluster of galaxies nicknamed "Pandora’s Cluster". Looking at the galaxies, gas and dark matter in the cluster, scientists have reconstructed the series of huge collisions that created it, and have uncovered some strange phenomena never seen together before. Credit ESA/Hubble, ESOVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserAnimations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis CalcadaWeb and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli Usher and Richard HookNarration: Gaitee HussainImages: NASA, ESA, ESOMusic: movetwoDirected by: Oli UsherExecutive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

16 June 2011: The Hubblecast's Dr J, aka Joe Liske, takes us on a tour of Centaurus A, a bright and dusty galaxy in the Southern sky. Hubble’s observations are the most detailed ever made of this galaxy. Highlights include bright clouds of glowing gas in which stars are being formed, dark streams of opaque dust and a supermassive black hole spitting out huge jets of matter. Credit: ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher and Lee Pullen Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J) Narration: Bob Fosbury Images: NASA, ESA, ESO Music: movetwo Directed by: Oli Usher Cinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix-media-gmbh.de) Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

9 June 2011: In 1987, the light from an exploding star in a neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, reached Earth. Since its launch in 1990, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has studied the wreckage of this dead star, called Supernova 1987A, and has watched it evolve. Supernova 1987A is the closest supernova to Earth to have been observed since the invention of the telescope, and is therefore an ideal laboratory for studying these phenomena.A new study, published on 9 June in the journal Nature, sheds new light on one aspect of this supernova: for about fourteen years after the explosion was first seen, its afterglow gradually got dimmer as the radioactive elements produced by the supernova decayed. More recently, it has started to brighten once more, and is now two to three times brighter than it was at its dimmest point. The team, led by Josefin Larsson of the University of Stockholm, …

23 May 2011: Though the Universe is filled with billions upon billions of stars, the discovery of a single variable star in 1923 altered the course of modern astronomy. The star goes by the inauspicious name of Hubble variable number one, or V1, and resides in the outer regions of our neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy, or Messier 31. In the early 1900s, most astronomers considered the Milky Way to be a single island universe of stars, with nothing observable beyond its boundaries. The Andromeda Galaxy was catalogued as just one of many faint, fuzzy patches of light that astronomers called spiral nebulae. Were these spiral nebulae part of the Milky Way or were they independent island universes lying outside our galaxy? Astronomers didn’t know for sure, until Edwin Hubble found a star in Andromeda that brightened and faded in a predictable pattern, like a lighthouse beacon, and identified it as V1, a Cepheid variable. …

21 April 2011: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is working on three of the most ambitious projects in its history just now. These multicycle treasury programs are using Hubble’s unique ability to observe across the spectrum from ultraviolet, through visible, to infrared light, to build up a library of data which will serve astronomers for many years. In this podcast episode, presenter Dr J (aka Joe Liske) looks at these projects, and how they will complement the capabilities of the next great thing in space-based astronomy, the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Animations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis Calcada Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J) Narration: Gaitee Hussain Images: NASA, ESA Music: movetwo Directed by: Oli Usher Cinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix-media-gmbh.de) Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

7 April 2011: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has joined forces with other telescopes to study the source of one of the most puzzling bursts of high-energy gamma rays and X-rays ever observed. More than a week after the burst was first spotted, high-energy radiation continues to brighten and fade. “We know of objects in our own galaxy that can produce repeated bursts, but they are thousands to millions of times less powerful than the bursts we are seeing now. This is truly extraordinary,” said Andrew Fruchter at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, USA. Astronomers say they have never seen anything this bright, long lasting and variable before. Usually, gamma ray bursts mark the destruction of a massive star, but X-ray emission from these events never lasts more than a few hours. Although research is ongoing, scientists say that the unusual blast likely arose when a star wandered too close to …

1 April 2011: The ESA Hubble Space Telescope Facebook page has just welcomed its 50 000th Facebook friend. This page brings Hubble Space Telescope fans the latest news from ESA, as NASA’s partner in this international project.   As a thank-you message for their friendship, the image above, showing NGC 5882 in the constellation of Lupus (The Wolf), was produced specially for all ESA/Hubble Facebook fans. NGC 5882 is a planetary nebula with unconventional good looks — quite bright, but small, with two distinct, but non-uniform regions: an elongated inner shell of gas and a fainter aspheric shell that surrounds it. However, the dying star at the heart of the planetary nebula dominates the image, shining brightly with an incredible surface temperature of almost 70 000 degrees Celsius. (By comparison, the surface temperature of the Sun is about 5500 degrees Celsius.) This picture comes from images taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. If you …

28 March 2011: Access a universe of knowledge about the Universe with three new free iPad apps from ESO’s education and Public Outreach Department (ePOD), available just in time for the iPad 2. Together with the European Space Agency (ESA), ePOD has launched the free ESA/Hubble Top 100 Images app, which brings users the best Hubble pictures from ESA, as NASA’s partner in this international project. Making full use of the iPad 2’s new features, users will be delighted by some of the most dramatic views of the Universe taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as having the chance to learn more about astronomy. Each image is explained in a caption with additional information just a tap away. In the slideshow mode the Top 100 can be contemplated with background music from Zero Project, while each high resolution image makes full use of the bright iPad screen when used as wallpaper. …

9 March 2011: “We have measured the distance to the most remote mature cluster of galaxies ever found,” says the lead author of the study, Raphael Gobat (CEA, Paris). “The surprising thing is that that when we look closely at this galaxy cluster it doesn’t look young — many of the galaxies have settled down and don’t resemble the usual star-forming galaxies seen in the early Universe.” Clusters of galaxies are the largest structures in the Universe that are held together by gravity. Astronomers expect these clusters to grow through time and so massive clusters should be rare in the early Universe. Although very distant clusters have been seen before, they appear to be young clusters in the process of formation, and are not settled, mature systems like this one. The cluster, called CL J1449+0856 [1], was first spotted by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, and its distance measured using the Very Large …

28 February 2011: One of Hubble’s mission objectives at launch was to study black holes, and to test the theory that supermassive black holes lurk in the centres of many galaxies. Two decades later, Hubble has helped solve that mystery — and in the process, asked new questions that have astronomers scratching their heads. The Hubblecast’s Dr J, aka Dr Joe Liske, takes us on a journey through some of Hubble’s work on black holes, and busts a few myths along the way. Credits: Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Animations: Martin Kornmesser and Luis Calçada Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher and Sarah Reed Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J) Narrator: Gaitee Hussain Images: NASA, ESA, ESO, Sloan Digital Sky Survey (David W. Hogg, Michael R. Blanton), Lockheed Martin, Google. Music: movetwo Directed by: Oli Usher Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

28 January 2011: Our very own Hubblecast host, Dr J, aka Dr Joe Liske, will be starring in the new German-language TV series Hubble: Mission Universum starting this Saturday (29 January) at 19.35 CET. The programme will be broadcast on the Austrian satellite/cable channel, Servus TV, which is available in a number of countries, including Germany, Italy and Switzerland. So far six episodes have been confirmed. The show will be celebrating the success of the famous NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which does much more than take pretty pictures: since it was launched into orbit over 20 years ago, Hubble has made almost a million spectacular observations and has revolutionised our understanding of the Universe. Using Hubble’s stunning catalogue of images, Dr J will be exploring some of science’s most intriguing questions. Also keep up to date with the Hubble team by watching the Hubblecast, or follow Dr J’s exploits on Facebook.

27 January 2011: What makes a scientific discovery really important? It’s partly down to how much scientists use the discovery in subsequent work — but it’s also partly down to what inspires their imagination. In this episode, the Hubblecast talks to some leading astronomers about their favourite Hubble discovery. Meanwhile, our presenter, Dr J, struggles to make up his mind. Credits: ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Filming: Herbert Zodet Animations: Martin Kornmesser and Luis Calçada Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher Interviews by: Oli Usher Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J) Music: movetwo Directed by: Oli Usher Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

12 January 2011: The final edition of the ST-ECF Newsletter has just been released. The Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF) was a collaborative project between the European Space Agency and the European Southern Observatory and acted as the scientific and technical coordination centre for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in Europe. Its 26-year-long history is captured in the 48 issues of the Newsletter. The ST-ECF closed its doors on 31 December 2010 (heic1019) In addition to covering the closure of ST-ECF, the final ST-ECF Newsletter features: An account and images of the third Science with the Hubble Space Telescope conference, which was held in Venice, Italy, in October 2010. Details about the public release of nearly 50 000 slitless spectra obtained with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Information about the future of the ST-ECF website, following the closure of the group. The Newsletter is available for download in PDF format from the …

14 December 2010: Hubble’s history of scientific breakthroughs has made us think afresh about our Universe. But behind the astronomical successes is a rollercoaster ride of scientific and technical challenges going back decades. The Hubblecast caught up with some of the key players in Hubble’s history, including an astronaut, a Nobel Prize winner and one of the scientists who diagnosed Hubble’s blurred vision in 1990. In this episode, narrated by veteran ESA scientist Bob Fosbury, they tell Hubble’s story through their personal experiences. Credits ESA/Hubble. Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Filming: Herbert Zodet Footage and photos: Herbert Zodet, NASA Animations: Martin Kornmesser and Luis Calçada Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher Interviews by: Oli Usher Narration: Dr Bob Fosbury Music: movetwo Directed by: Oli Usher Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

29 October 2010: In early 2009 a team of astronauts visited Hubble and, as part of their mission, installed a new camera: the WFC3. As well as providing scientists with higher resolution observations than ever before, the pictures provided by WFC3 are among Hubble’s prettiest yet. This episode of the Hubblecast looks at the science behind this instrument, including how it is helping Hubble to see the invisible, look far back in time and spot objects further away from us than those seen by any other telescope in history.

4 October 2010: Astronomers from around the world are gathering for the third Science with the Hubble Space Telescope conference (HST3), which takes place in Venice from 11–14 October. They will be celebrating 20 years of cutting-edge science with the world’s most famous orbiting observatory, and looking forward to new research opportunities in the years to come. The previous Science with the Hubble Space Telescope conference took place in Paris in 1995. Since then, scientists have made numerous breakthroughs in astronomy and astrophysics with the telescope, including imaging the most distant galaxies in the Universe and probing the atmospheres of exoplanets for the first time. Talks at the conference will include both retrospectives on Hubble’s rich history and discussions of the research to be pursued in the years ahead. Thanks to the new instruments installed during Servicing Mission 4 in 2009, Hubble’s ability to see and study the cosmos is way beyond what …

1 October 2010: Today, the third — and best — version of the popular ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator image-processing software has been released with several significant improvements. As with the previous versions of the FITS Liberator, the new version makes another leap towards making the creation of colour images from raw astronomical observations easier and faster. The FITS Liberator continues to support the FITS and PDS formats, preferred by astronomers and planetary scientists respectively, which enables data to be processed from a wide range of telescopes and planetary probes, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, ESO’s Very Large Telescope, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, ESA’s XMM–Newton Telescope and Cassini–Huygens or Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The new FITS Liberator incorporates a faster and more streamlined workflow. The CPU-intensive calculations have been optimised, thanks to significantly improved memory management, and this allows for time savings of up to 35%. For large images the savings in efficiency are even …

27 September 2010: Today’s telescopes study the sky across the electromagnetic spectrum. Each part of the spectrum tells us different things about the Universe, giving us more pieces of the cosmic jigsaw puzzle. The most powerful telescopes on the ground and in space have joined forces over the last decade in a unique observing campaign, known as the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, or GOODS, which reaches across the spectrum and deep back into cosmic time. In a very special “multicast” video podcast, the Hubblecast has joined forces with the ESOcast, the Spitzer Space Telescope’s “Hidden Universe”, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s “Beautiful Universe” podcasts. Here we explore the collaboration of these great observatories on the GOODS project.

14 September 2010: The European Space Agency, NASA and the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti present The Hubble Space Telescope: Twenty Years at the Frontier of Science, a month-long exhibition of photos and artefacts from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, in their beautiful and historic Palazzo Loredan, will play host to the event, which runs from 16 September to 15 October and coincides with a major international scientific conference on Hubble in October. The exhibition features many of the breathtaking photos that have made Hubble famous over the past 20 years, alongside detailed explanations. Also featured are exhibits associated with the five space shuttle missions that visited Hubble to install upgrades and make repairs between 1993 and 2009. This part of the exhibition includes tools and equipment used by the astronauts as they carried out their difficult work hundreds of kilometres from Earth. …

1 September 2010: After 20 years of pointing its cameras into the depths of space, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is quite a star here on Earth too. Whether it is on a biceps tattoo or a piece of toast, in a fashion show, at a rock concert, or on the show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Hubble has become part of our lives through popular culture. This summer, ESA/Hubble ran a competition to find the weirdest, funniest and most inspiring examples of Hubble as a cultural icon. From album covers to a brilliant life-size wooden model made by Australian artist Peter Hennessey, the entries showed how science and creativity come together. Some of the most eye-catching entries are featured in a new episode of the Hubblecast, which looks at the cosmic inspiration behind them. The video is available in a range of formats including high definition at: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/hubblecast38a/ The winners of the …