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heic1008 — Science Release

Hubble catches heavyweight runaway star speeding from 30 Doradus

11 May 2010: A heavy runaway star rushing away from a nearby stellar nursery at more than 400 000 kilometres per hour, a speed that would get you to the Moon and back in two hours. The runaway is the most extreme case of a very massive star that has been kicked out of its home by a group of even heftier siblings. Tantalising clues from three observatories, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s newly installed Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), and some old-fashioned detective work, suggest that the star may have travelled about 375 light-years from its suspected home, a giant star cluster called R136.

heic1007 — Science Release

Starry-eyed Hubble celebrates 20 Years of awe and discovery

23 April 2010: The best recognised, longest-lived and most prolific space observatory zooms past a milestone of 20 years of operation. On 24 April 1990, the Space Shuttle and crew of STS-31 were launched to deploy the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope into a low-Earth orbit. What followed was one of the most remarkable sagas of the space age.

heic1006 — Photo Release

Hubble snaps heavyweight of the Leo Triplet

8 April 2010: Hubble has snapped a spectacular view of the largest "player" in the Leo Triplet, a galaxy with an unusual anatomy: it displays asymmetric spiral arms and an apparently displaced core. The peculiar anatomy is most likely caused by the gravitational pull of the other two members of the trio.

heic1005 — Science Release

Hubble confirms cosmic acceleration with weak lensing

25 March 2010: A new study led by European scientists presents the most comprehensive analysis of data from the most ambitious survey ever undertaken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. These researchers have, for the first time ever, used Hubble data to probe the effects of the natural gravitational "weak lenses" in space and characterise the expansion of the Universe.

heic1004 — Photo Release

Bully galaxy rules the neighbourhood

4 March 2010: In general, galaxies can be thought of as "social" — hanging out in groups and frequently interacting. However, this recent NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image highlights how some galaxies appear to be hungry loners. These cosmic oddities have set astronomers on the "case of the missing neighbour galaxies".

heic1003 — Photo Release

Saturn's aurorae offer stunning double show

11 February 2010: Researchers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope recently took advantage of a rare opportunity to record Saturn when its rings are edge-on, resulting in a unique movie featuring both of the giant planet's poles. Saturn is only in this position every 15 years and this favourable orientation has allowed a sustained study of Saturn’s almost symmetric northern and southern lights.

heic1002 — Science Release

Forming the present-day spiral galaxies

4 February 2010: Using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have, for the first time, created a demographic census of galaxy types and shapes from a time before the Earth and the Sun existed, to the present day. The results show that, contrary to contemporary thought, more than half of the present-day spiral galaxies had so-called peculiar shapes only 6 billion years ago, which, if confirmed, highlights the importance of collisions and mergers in the recent past of many galaxies. It also provides clues for the unique status of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

heic1001 — Science Release

Hubble finds most distant primeval galaxies

5 January 2010: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has broken the distance limit for galaxies and uncovered a primordial population of compact and ultra-blue galaxies that have never been seen before. The data from the Hubble’s new infrared camera, the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), on the Ultra Deep Field (taken in August 2009) have been analysed by five international teams of astronomers. Some of these early results are being presented by various team members on 6 January 2010, at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington DC, USA.

heic0918 — Science Release

Vampires and collisions rejuvenate stars

23 December 2009: Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have uncovered two distinct kinds of "rejuvenated" stars in the globular cluster Messier 30. A new study shows that both stellar collisions and a process sometimes called vampirism are behind this cosmic "face lift". The scientists also uncover evidence that both sorts of blue stragglers were produced during a critical dynamical event (known as "core collapse") that occurred in Messier 30 a few billion years ago.

heic0917 — Photo Release

Born in beauty: proplyds in the Orion Nebula

14 December 2009: A collection of 30 never-before-released images of embryonic planetary systems in the Orion Nebula are the highlight of the longest single Hubble Space Telescope project ever dedicated to the topic of star and planet formation. Also known as proplyds, or protoplanetary discs, these modest blobs surrounding baby stars are shedding light on the mechanism behind planet formation. Only the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with its high resolution and sensitivity, can take such detailed pictures of circumstellar discs at optical wavelengths.

heic0916 — Photo Release

Hubble's deepest view of Universe unveils never-before-seen galaxies

8 December 2009: The new Wide Field Camera 3 aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken the deepest image yet of the Universe in near-infrared light. The faintest and reddest objects in the image are likely the oldest galaxies ever identified, having formed between only 600–900 million years after the Big Bang.

heic0915 — Photo Release

Blushing dusty nebula

1 December 2009: A recent NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of part of NGC 7023, or the Iris Nebula, highlights a perfect dust laboratory in the sky.

heic0914 — Photo Release

Baffling boxy bulge

18 November 2009: Just as many people are surprised to find themselves packing on unexplained weight around the middle, astronomers find the evolution of bulges in the centres of spiral galaxies puzzling. A recent NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 4710 is part of a survey that astronomers have conducted to learn more about the formation of bulges, which are a substantial component of most spiral galaxies.

heic0913 — Photo Release

Opening up a colourful cosmic Jewel Box

29 October 2009: The combination of images taken by three exceptional telescopes: the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the ESO Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal, the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla observatory has allowed the stunning Jewel Box star cluster to be seen in a whole new light.

heic0912 — Photo Release

Sky merger yields sparkling dividends

13 October 2009: A recent NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures what appears to be one very bright and bizarre galaxy, but is actually the result of a pair of spiral galaxies that resemble our own Milky Way smashing together at breakneck speeds. The product of this dramatic collision, called NGC 2623, or Arp 243, is about 250 million light-years away in the constellation of Cancer (the Crab).

heic0911 — Photo Release

Stripped down: Hubble highlights two galaxies that are losing it

30 September 2009: A newly released set of images, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope before the recent Servicing Mission, highlight the ongoing drama in two galaxies in the Virgo Cluster affected by a process known as "ram pressure stripping", which can result in peculiar-looking galaxies. An extremely hot X-ray emitting gas known as the intra-cluster medium lurks between galaxies within clusters. As galaxies move through this intra-cluster medium, strong winds rip through galaxies distorting their shape and even halting star formation.

heic0910 — Science Release

Rebirth of an icon: Hubble's first images since Servicing Mission 4

9 September 2009: 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.

heic0909 — Science Release

Hubble captures rare Jupiter collision

24 July 2009: The checkout and calibration of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been interrupted to aim the recently refurbished observatory at a new expanding spot on the giant planet Jupiter. The spot, caused by the impact of a comet or an asteroid, is changing from day to day in the planet’s cloud tops.

heic0908 — Science Release

Historic Hubble Servicing Mission 4 ends with successful landing

24 May 2009: The historic and successful Hubble Servicing Mission 4 concluded with a trouble-free Space Shuttle landing on Sunday. During a series of unprecedented spacewalks, astronauts replaced and repaired a total of four instruments. The Wide Field Camera 3 and Cosmic Origins Spectrograph were installed and the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph were successfully repaired.

heic0907 — Science Release

Servicing Mission 4 - the fifth and final visit to Hubble

1 May 2009: On 11 May 2009 the Space Shuttle Atlantis will launch with a crew of seven to visit the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and carry out the fifth and final servicing mission. The replacement and repair of several instruments will see Hubble equipped to continue its programme of discovery well into the next decade.

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