Category Archives: Hubble Telescope

Two moons - one of Saturn, the other of Jupiter - show evidence of the ingredients needed to support life, NASA said on Thursday.

The findings on Saturn's moon Enceladus were captured by the Cassini space probe, which has been orbiting Saturn for 13 years. The findings on Jupiter's moon Europa were discovered by the Hubble telescope, NASA said at a news conference in Washington.

NASA scientists said huge plumes spewing gases on the surface of Enceladus indicate the presence of hydrogen gas, which could potentially provide a chemical energy source for microbial life. The source of the plumes is hydrothermal activity on the floor of an Enceladus ocean.

According to dpa, researchers with the Cassini mission said ample hydrogen in the ocean of Enceladus means that microbes - if any exist there - could use it to obtain energy by combining the hydrogen with carbon dioxide dissolved in the water.

On Jupiter's moon Europa, the Hubble telescope observed probable plumes erupting last year, indicating what they believe is a form of chemical energy that life can feed on. These were observed at the same location where Hubble saw evidence of a plume in 2014.

The images from Europa bolster evidence that its plumes could be a real phenomenon, flaring up intermittently in the same region, NASA said.

This is the closest we've come, so far, to identifying a place with some of the ingredients needed for a habitable environment, said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

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NASA finds evidence of ingredients to support life on two moons - Emirates 24|7

Uranus is not just a featureless ball of bluish-green gas.

Bright auroras light up the planet's atmosphere in two newly released photos, which combine observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the agency's Voyager 2 probe. (Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986 as part of a "grand tour" of the solar system's outer planets that the spacecraft performed with its twin, Voyager 1.)

Uranus' auroras are driven by the same basic processes that cause auroras here on Earth, which are also known as the northern and southern lights. [Take a Video Look at the Auroras on Uranus]

"Auroras are caused by streams of charged particles like electrons that come from various origins such as solar winds, the planetary ionosphere and moon volcanism," NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) officials wrote in an image description today (April 10). (Hubble is a joint NASA/ESA mission.)

Bright auroras are clearly visible in this composite photo of Uranus, which combines two different observations made by NASAs Hubble Space Telescope (one each for the planets rings and auroras) and one image by the agencys Voyager 2 probe, which flew by Uranus in 1986.

"They become caught in powerful magnetic fields and are channeled into the upper atmosphere, where their interactions with gas particles, such as oxygen or nitrogen, set off spectacular bursts of light," they added.

This isn't the first Uranus aurora observation for Hubble; the telescope also captured them back in November 2011.

The butt of solar system jokes, Uranus is also a spectacular blue planet still hiding many scientific secrets. See how much you know:

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Uranus Quiz: How Well Do You Know the Tilted Planet?

The butt of solar system jokes, Uranus is also a spectacular blue planet still hiding many scientific secrets. See how much you know:

The newly released photos also show Uranus' ring system, which appears to circle the planet's poles. But the rings actually gird Uranus' equator, just like those of Saturn: Uranus orbits the sun on its side, with the planet's spin axis pointing nearly directly at the star. Astronomers think the gas giant was knocked off-kilter long ago by a collision with an Earth-size planet, or perhaps by a series of impacts with smaller objects.

Uranus is the third-largest planet in the solar system, with a diameter about four times that of Earth. Uranus lies about 19 times farther from the sun than our planet does, and it takes 84 Earth years to complete one orbit.

The Hubble telescope launched on April 24, 1990, aboard the space shuttle Discovery and was deployed a day later. The space telescope is still going strong, as is Voyager 2; the spacecraft, which launched in 1977, is currently about 12.8 billion miles (20.6 billion kilometers) from Earth and is expected to pop free into interstellar space soon. Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in August 2012 and is also still sending data home to its handlers.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwallandGoogle+.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Originally published onSpace.com.

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Auroras on Uranus Dazzle in New Hubble Telescope Views - Space.com

Theres more evidence that plumes of water are erupting from underneath the crust of Jupiters moon Europa. NASA announced the findings today at a press conference, at the same time that the agency also announced new clues that Saturns moon Enceladus may have the right conditions for life.

A possible plume was spotted in 2016 by NASAs Hubble Space Telescope, which is currently in orbit around Earth. At the time, the telescope imaged what looked like a 62-mile-high water plume in ultraviolet light. A similar watery eruption on Europa has been observed before. In 2014, Hubble saw a potential plume that reached 30 miles high, and it was spewing from the same spot as the one in 2016. That means these plumes may be consistently erupting from one region.

NASA isnt saying that these are actual plumes just yet, but if they do exist theyre probably coming from the vast saltwater ocean that is thought to lurk underneath Europas surface. These plumes also seem to be coming from a particularly warm region on the moon, where there are cracks in the icy crust. Its possible that the water being vented from the sea floor underneath this spot is warming the crust. Or maybe the plume materials are falling back to the surface, changing the crust in such a way so that it stays warm.

Either way, this site on Europa could serve as a great place to visit, and NASA is currently making a spacecraft to do just that. The Europa Clipper mission, which is supposed to launch in the 2020s, involves sending a vehicle to the ocean moon that will periodically fly by the world and collect crucial data. Europa Clipper will also be equipped with an ultraviolet imager like Hubble, but the images it takes will be thousands of times closer. And more refined instruments will be able to figure out what the particles surrounding Europa are made of.

If there are plumes on Europa, as we now strongly suspect, with the Europa Clipper we will be ready for them, Jim Green, NASAs director of planetary science, said in a statement.

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NASA's Hubble telescope spots potential water plumes on Europa ... - The Verge

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Images taken from the NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) spacecrafts of Voyager2 and the Hubble Space Telescope show beautiful white auroras hovering over Uranus.

Auroras occur on the chillingly blue seventh planet farthest from the sun in the sam fashion as they do here on Earth.

Auroras here and on Uranus form when atmospheric molecules and energetic particles collide to create light.

A statement from the ESA and NASA adds: They become caught in powerful magnetic fields and are channeled into the upper atmosphere, where their interactions with gas particles, such as oxygen or nitrogen, set off spectacular bursts of light.

ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Lamy/Observatoire de Paris

However, auroras on Earth typically stick to regions near to the north and south poles.

But as the statement explains: By watching the auroras over time, they collected the first direct evidence that these powerful shimmering regions rotate with the planet.

GETTY

Uranus sits about 19 times farther from the Sun that Earth does and is the third larges planet in the solar system behind Saturn and Jupiter.

Auroras were also spotted on Jupiter, aptly named the King of the Solar System due to it being the far biggest planet in our galactic neighbourhood, last year but the auroras there are unique.

GETTY

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Aurora lights reflect in lagoon, Jokulsarlon, Iceland

On Jupiter the rapid rotating magnetic field collides with energetic particles from both solar winds blasting against the planet at a million miles per hour and particles released from volcanic eruptions on one of its moons, Io.

However, it is unclear how the aurora on Jupiter is affected by solar flares, which Nasa is hoping to shed light on through its historic Juno mission.

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Hubble Telescope takes stunning images of white auroras on Uranus - Express.co.uk

Peering way back in time, astronomers have discovered the faintest galaxy ever detected in the early universe.

No more than a few pixels in Hubble images, the galaxy appears as it did 13.1 billion years ago just 700 million years after the big bang.

The discovery, reported in the journal Nature Astronomy, sheds light on a critical period in the evolution of the universe.

Up to a billion years after the big bang, light from the earliest stars and galaxies ionised hydrogen atoms.

This process produced charged plasma instead of opaque, neutral hydrogen gas, bringing an end to the cosmic "dark ages" and creating the transparent universe we know today.

Study co-author Michele Trenti of the University of Melbourne said that faint galaxies, which are the most common in the universe, were thought to be responsible for this crucial "cosmic reionisation".

But up until now, astronomers had only found a handful of bright galaxies at this distance.

"The further back in time you look at distant objects, the harder it is to find the smaller, more common galaxies," Dr Trenti said.

Austin Hoag, who led the study, said the newly discovered galaxy, known as MACS1423-z7p64, was about 10 times fainter than other galaxies that have been found at the same distance.

"That might not sound like much, but when you are looking for galaxies at such a vast distance, even the very brightest ones are hard to confirm," said Mr Hoag, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Davis.

Dr Trenti said the galaxy was estimated to have about 500 million stars.

"To put that in context, our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has about 100 billion stars. Thus we are talking about a galaxy that is about 200 times less massive than the Milky Way."

He said the discovery pushed the limits of what was possible using current telescopes.

"The smallest galaxies might have just one million stars, so there is still room for future discoveries of even less luminous distant galaxies as our telescope technology improves," Dr Trenti said.

Gravitational lensing: The researchers focused the Hubble Telescope on a bigger, closer galaxy to bend light and magnify more distant galaxies

(Supplied: NASA/W. M. Keck Observatory/A. Hoag/M. Bradac)

Gravitational lensing: The researchers focused the Hubble Telescope on a bigger, closer galaxy to bend light and magnify more distant galaxies

Supplied: NASA/W. M. Keck Observatory/A. Hoag/M. Bradac

The international team of astronomers made the discovery using the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

First, they used a technique known as gravitational lensing to locate and identify distant galaxies.

"It happens when the galaxy you are looking for is behind a very massive structure, in our case a cluster of galaxies at a much closer distance than the galaxy itself," explained Mr Hoag.

"The mass from the structure bends the light of the more distant galaxy, and in some cases causes the galaxy to be magnified."

The galaxy was sitting in a sweet spot behind a giant cluster that magnified its brightness by a factor of 10, so it could be detected by the Hubble telescope.

Then, to get a precise measurement of the distance, a team led by Mr Hoag used the Keck Observatory to analyse the light spectrum coming from the galaxy.

"Because the light has to travel all the way from the distant sources to us in an expanding universe it gets shifted towards the red wavelength," Dr Trenti explained.

The galaxy had a redshift of 7.6, meaning its light came from when the universe was only about 700 million years old.

A team led by Dr Trenti repeated the observations again a year later in 2016 to confirm the distance was correct.

Dr Trenti said it was likely more faint galaxies at this distance would be revealed by more powerful telescopes, such as the James Webb Telescope, which is due to be launched in 2018.

"It took us two nights staring at the source with the Keck telescope in different years [to confirm this galaxy]," Dr Trenti said.

"The James Webb will get much higher quality spectrum in one or two hours of observation. It will be the next really giant leap forward in the field."

The James Webb Space Telescope will be able to see further back in space than current telescopes.

(Supplied: NASA)

The James Webb Space Telescope will be able to see further back in space than current telescopes.

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Astronomers detect ultra-faint galaxy from the very early universe - ABC Online

Unlike its more glamorous relatives Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus gets a bit of a bum deal when it comes to planetary popularity; often the butt of jokes thanks to its slightly inelegant name.

SEE ALSO: Watch NASA Footage Of An Exploding Star

This is, in our opinion, is grossly unfair, so it's good to see Uranus getting a bit of love thanks to some powerful, naturally-occurring auroras that were spotted by the Hubble Telescope.

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Scientists at the Paris Observatory were able to capture a dazzling light show occurring around Uranus, a sight not dissimilar from the Northern Lights here on earth.

Caused by solar winds colliding with oxygen and nitrogen gas particles in the planet's outer atmosphere, it was discovered in 2012 that these light shows actually rotate with the planet.

Despite these new images, little is known about the seventh planet from the sun, aside from the fact that it's very cold, 63 times bigger than our fair planet and that its winds can travel at speeds reaching more than 500 miles per hour.

Another view of Uranus

NASA

We'll just wait for the inevitable Mars colony, if that's ok...

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The Hubble Telescope Spotted Something Strange Going On Around Uranus - Esquire.co.uk

NASA is set to reveal this week at a news conference new results about ocean worlds in our solar system. The announcements will be related particularly to findings from the agencys Saturn probe Cassini spacecraft and the Hubble space telescope, NASA said in a statement. These new discoveries will also help inform future ocean world exploration including NASAs upcoming Europa Clipper mission planned for launch in the 2020s and the broader search for life beyond the Earth.

The event, to be held at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington on Thursday at 2.00PM EDT (11.30PM India time), will include remote participation from experts across the US. NASAs Cassini spacecraft, which was launched in 1997 and arrived at Saturn in 2004, is set to end its 20-year journey on September 15 this year with a planned plunge.

The agencys planned Europa Clipper would place a spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter in order to perform a detailed investigation of the giant planets moon Europa a world that shows strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust and which could host conditions favorable for life. ALSO READ:NASAs Hubble telescope shows close-up image of Jupiter, Great Red Spot

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NASA to reveal findings from Saturn probe Cassini, Hubble telescope this week - BGR India

Amid plenty of political turmoil on Earth on Thursday, NASA and the European Space Agency quietly released the latest photo of Jupiter taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

This picture revealed no new discoveries, unlike a Hubble image last fall that detected evidence of water vapor plumes from one of Jupiter's moons. Nor did it capture the aftermath of some significant event, such as when a comet or asteroid collided with Jupiter's atmosphere and left it "bruised."

Instead, Thursday's picture was simply a reminder that, somewhere out there above the heavens, a decades-old space telescope is still doing what it has done best: capturing spectacularly detailed images of the universe to blow the minds of those on Earth.

Courtesy of NASA, the European Space Agency, A. Simon via GSFC

Jupiter, as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on Monday.

This month, Jupiter is in opposition, meaning it is at its closest to our planet (416 million miles away), with its Earth-facing hemisphere fully illuminated by the sun. It will shine especially brightly Friday night and early Saturday morning, when it makes its absolute closest approach.

Never ones to miss an opportunity, NASA and the ESA decided to point the Hubble toward Jupiter while it was in opposition, so that it could capture the atmosphere of the largest planet in the solar system in more detail.

The image it took Monday didn't disappoint. Hubble was able to capture surface features that are just 80 miles across.

"The final image shows a sharp view of Jupiter and reveals a wealth of features in its dense atmosphere," NASA and the ESA, which cooperate on the Hubble project, said in a statement. The picture "reveals the intricate, detailed beauty of Jupiter's clouds as arranged into bands of different latitudes."

Clearly visible in the photo are Jupiter's famous atmospheric bands, created by different-colored clouds. The lighter bands have higher concentrations of frozen ammonia in them, compared with the darker ones, the agencies said.

On the lower left side of the image is Jupiter's famous Great Red Spot, an ongoing larger-than-Earth storm on the gas giant planet's surface. A smaller storm, dubbed "Red Spot Junior," is visible farther south. Winds on the planet can reach up to 400 mph.

"However, as with the last images of Jupiter taken by Hubble and telescopes on the ground, this new image confirms that the huge storm that has raged on Jupiter's surface for at least 150 years continues to shrink," the agencies said. "The reason for this is still unknown. So Hubble will continue to observe Jupiter in the hope that scientists will solve this stormy riddle."

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit in 1990, and ever since its first photo an underwhelming grainy, black-and-white image of some stars, thanks to a flaw in a primary mirror it has gone on to deliver some truly dazzling images from space. Time magazine has a roundup of the 50 "best" photos taken by Hubble, though all are quite extraordinary in their own way, depending on one's interest in any particular corner of the universe.

NASA has been developing a new telescope, the $8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, that will be able to see back in time, almost to the beginning of the universe. The Webb will be able to collect seven times the starlight as the Hubble and observe the universe in infrared wavelengths of light, which the Hubble can't, The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach reported in February. Eventually, the Webb telescope is expected to replace the Hubble, which "is still working fabulously but getting long in the tooth," Achenbach wrote.

Until then, the Hubble will continue capturing away. The photo released Thursday was part of the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program, according to NASA and the ESA. The program, which allows the telescope to study the outer planets each year, started in 2014 with Uranus and has been observing Jupiter and Neptune since 2015. In 2018, the Hubble will turn its focus to Saturn.

Behold, the Hubble Telescope's latest close-up photo of Jupiter 04/07/17 [Last modified: Friday, April 7, 2017 2:31pm] Photo reprints | Article reprints

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Behold, the Hubble Telescope's latest close-up photo of Jupiter - Tampabay.com

WESTPORT, Conn. Ys Man Marty Yellin will once again share his knowledge of the scientific world, thistime updating the group on the work of the Hubble Telescope.

The Hubble was sent into low Earthorbit in 1990 and remains the most productive astronomical instrument ever built.

Yellin will speak to Ys Men of Westport/Weston on April 13 at the SaugatuckCongregational Church at 245 Post Road E., Westport.

He will speak about some ofthe latest findings from the telescope, with an emphasis on its recent discoveries of manyexoplanets, which seem to have the conditions for life of some kind.

He will also talkabout some of the most recently discovered Black Holes, including showing the first-ever picture of a Black Hole swallowing a star like our Sun.

Yellin earned bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from CUNY.

He joined Perkin-Elmer, where he was a member of the top-secret Hexagon program,the largest and most successful spy satellite ever to be flown up to that time. He laterworked on the team that designed and fabricated the Hubble Space Telescope.

In his "retirement," Yellin earned a doctorate at New York University in biomedical engineering, then joined aprogram evaluating new approaches to cancer treatment.

If youre a retired or semi-retired man living in Westport or Weston and looking forsomething new, for an active group with over 400 men like yourself, drop by Thursdaymorning.

Coffee, doughnuts and schmoozing are on the agenda as you learn about Ys Men, hear aninteresting speaker, meet old friends and make new ones. Ys Men gets you out of yourhouse and into your choice of over two dozen activities, from bridge to boating to hikingto international affairs and book discussions.

Click here to learn more about the group.

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Satellite Expert To Speak On Hubble Telescope, Exoplanets In Westport - Westport Daily Voice

Hubble stuns once again with an image of a super star cluster called Westerlund 1. A massive star resides here, dwarfing Earth's sun handily.

Westerlund 1, the glittering star cluster that is home to a truly massive hypergiant star, takes center stage in this photo bythe Hubble Space Telescope.

Located about 15,000 light-years away,Westerlund 1 is the cosmic homeofthe giant star Westerlund 1-26, a monster red supergiant star (also known as a hypergiant). The star is so big, its radius is more than 1,500 times that of our sun, NASA officials said in an image description.

"IfWesterlund 1-26 were placed where our sun is in our solar system, it would extend out beyond the orbit of Jupiter," NASA officials wrote.

At around 3 million years old, the Westerlund 1 cluster is a young collection of stars when compared toour own sun which is roughly 4.6 billion years old. This super star cluster likely was birthed in a singleflurry of events making all the stars residing here roughly the same age and composition, NASA officials explained.

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Hubble Telescope Snaps Sparkly Photo of Hypergiant Star's Home - Space.com