Category Archives: Hubble Telescope

A stunning new photo snapped by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shines a light on a mysterious galaxy that may be considerably older than it looks.

Our own Milky Way galaxy formed about 13 billion years ago, and most galaxies in its neighborhood are similarly old. But one galaxy just 39 million light-years away known as DDO 68 seems to be significantly younger, more like the galaxies lying several billion light-years away.

Galaxiesevolve over billions of years, so astronomers must study snapshots of them in various stages of development in order to understand the process. Because early galaxies lie billions of light-yearsfrom the Milky Way, they appear small and fainter than their older cousins, making them more challenging to observe. If DDO 68 is indeed relatively young, it would offer astronomers a more accessible target.

DDO 68, also known as UGC 5340, bears a strong similarity to early galaxies in its structure, appearance, and composition, researchers said.

For example, DDO 68 appears to have a less metal-rich environment than its older neighbors do. Young galaxies have fewer heavy elements, or metals, in their chemical makeup because such metals are made in the hearts of starsand are released through the star explosions known as supernovas. As each generation of stars reaches an end, more and more metals pollute the otherwise-primordial composition of the galaxy.

Galaxies are also dated by studying the ages of its stars. For some time, the stellar population of DDO 68 was thought to be around 1 billion years old, far younger than the suns 5 billion-year age. A recent examinationof the mysterious galaxy in archival Hubble images, however, revealed red giant stars (the next major phase of the suns evolution), while other studies also suggest the presence of older stars.

When taken with other evidence, the findings suggest that DDO 68 is at least 10 billion years old not a young galaxy after all. But more complex modeling is required to understand its nature, researchers said.

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Stunning Galaxy Looks Deceptively Young in Hubble Telescope Views (Photo, Video)

Mysterious "Bermuda Triangle" in Space Affecting Hubble Telescope
More space news and info at: http://www.coconutsciencelab.com - the South Atlantic Anomaly is a region of space full of swarms of intensely high energy parti...

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Mysterious "Bermuda Triangle" in Space Affecting Hubble Telescope - Video

An internal study finds that female-led proposals to use the in-demand device are less likely to be selected

The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, is still in high demand among scientists. Less than a quarter of proposals for observation time are approved. NASA

For an astronomer, winning precious observation time on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for your study is a big dealmore than three quarters of proposals are rejected. It turns out, however, that this honor is a bit easier for men to achieve than women. An internal Hubble study found that in each of the past 11 observation proposal cycles, applications led by male principal investigators had a higher success rate than those led by women. Its fascinating and disturbing, says Yale University astronomer Meg Urry, who formerly led the Hubble proposal review committee for several years and admitted to frustration that some of the results occurred during her tenure. I made a lot of efforts to have women on the review committees, and during the review I spent time listening to the deliberations of each panel. I never heard anything that struck me as discriminationand my antennae are definitely tuned for such thingsso its clear the bias is very subtle, and that both men and women are biased. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore runs the HST program and began the study about two years ago. After manually reviewing all proposals and categorizing them by gender the researchers found that mens applications fared better than womens in every cycle they examined. The results will be published in an upcoming issue of Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. The effect is smallit translates to about four or five fewer proposals from women being selected each cycle than one might expect based on how many were submitted. You can kind of explain it away as just sampling statistics in any given cycle, but it happens every year, says Neill Reid, an STScI astronomer who oversees time allocation for Hubble. It is a systematic effect. The effect is stronger for older principal investigators (PIs); among recent graduates, the success rates for men and women are closer to equal. I could speculate whether the proposals are being written in a different way or whether the younger astronomers are more visible because theyre giving more talks. Maybe it has something to do with the institutions theyre at, Reid offers. Because the Hubble scientists have no information about the cause of the gender imbalance, they plan to analyze their data for contributing factors and consult social scientists who research bias about the best strategies to combat the trend. Already STScI has implemented some changes to try to level the playing field for men and women. The scientists who oversee proposal evaluation now tell reviewers before each cycle that this systematic effect exists, and that they believe unconscious bias might contribute to it. Sometimes people talk about the proposer rather than the proposal, Reid says. We ask them to focus on the science. The proposal format has also changed. Whereas the PIs name used to be in large type on the first page, they are now included among the rest of the team on page 2, and only first initials are used. Thus far, these steps have not reversed the trend, however: Women fared no better in the latest proposal-review cycle than they had before. I know STScI has tried very hard to minimize the effects of unconscious bias, Urry remarks. The only thing left is to do blind reviews, removing the names of the proposers altogether. But this is very difficult because the panels are supposed to evaluate the ability of the team to deliver what they propose. I am not sure what the answer is. A further complication is that the astronomy field is small, and reviewers may be able to guess the identities of proposers even if names are minimized or removed. Nevertheless, taking steps to make review processes as anonymous as possible has been shown to reduce bias in other scientific settings. Susan Benecchi, an astronomer at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., won observing time on Hubble during the latest round of applications and previously served on a review panel. She said shes never been aware of any bias in the process. Except for the fact that PI names are on the proposal, it's really not about the PI or team or anything other than: Do we think they can get the result they are after and is that science interesting, timely and uniquely requiring of HST? Ultimately, allocating time on Hubble is a subjective and human process, and therefore open to biases. It may be unsurprising, then, that signs of gender discrimination show up, as they do in many sectors of society. Indeed, preliminary studies at several other U.S. observatories, such as Kitt Peak National Observatory and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, appear to show the same gender disparity in proposal success. This is a community issue not an HST issue, Reid observes. One positive development, the STScI team found, is that more and more women are applying for Hubble time. In the most recent cycles women have contributed close to 25 percent of all proposals, with the latest round featuring a greater ratio of female-led petitions than ever before. The scientists hope that this trend, at least, is one that continues.

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Hubble Telescope Time Preferentially Goes to Men

The Universe Through The Hubble Telescope, Space Science Discovery Documentary 2

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The Universe Through The Hubble Telescope, Space Science Discovery Documentary 2 - Video

The agency's Hubble Space Telescope spots one of the smallest galaxies ever discovered -- with a giant black hole at its core.

An artist's rendering of the massive black hole at the center of the tiny 'dwarf' galaxy revealed by NASA on September 17. NASA

They say big things come in little packages. That may never be more true than with what astronomers have just discovered: A "monster" black hole hiding inside one of the smallest galaxies ever known.

NASA said Wednesday that astronomers using its Hubble Space Telescope have found a new dwarf galaxy -- known as M60-UCD1 -- that "crams 140 million stars within a diameter of about 300 light-years, which is only 1/500th" the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy.

At the core of this tiny galaxy is what NASA is calling a "supermassive," or "monster" black hole, one that has five times the mass of the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. A dwarf galaxy is one that has a small fraction of the hundreds of billion of stars in the Milky Way.

However, when comparing the density of the Milky Way and the newly-discovered galaxy, NASA said looking at the nighttime sky from Earth reveals about 4,000 stars. Someone looking up into the sky from inside M60-UCD1 would see a million stars.

According to NASA, this finding indicates there could be many other dense galaxies throughout the universe that also have giant black holes. At the same time, the space agency said, the discovery may mean that dwarf galaxies like M60-UCD1 could be the ripped remnants of larger galaxies that broke apart during violent events such as collisions with other galaxies.

"We don't know of any other way you could make a black hole so big in an object this small," Anil Seth, the University of Utah astronomer who led a study about the newly-found galaxy, said in a NASA statement.

Seth's team used both the Hubble telescope and Hawaii's Gemini North-8 meter optical and infrared telescope to identify the new galaxy and measure the black hole's mass.

NASA explained that black holes are "gravitationally collapsed, ultra-compact objects that have a gravitational pull so strong that even light cannot escape."

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NASA finds tiniest galaxy has 'supermassive' black hole

Hubble Telescope Worker Tells All
Hubble Telescope Worker tells what he knows about Comet Elenin. http://www.freedomslips.com/ NOTE: This is a reup from several other YouTubers. http://www.pa...

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Hubble Telescope Worker Tells All - Video

Hubble Telescope - best images
Selection of the best still images from Hubble, set to music. No narration.Nice atmospheric piece.

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Hubble Telescope - best images - Video

78 - Hubble Telescope by Sam Manary
78 - Hubble Telescope by Sam Manary.

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78 - Hubble Telescope by Sam Manary - Video

This photograph of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope was takenon the second servicing mission to the observatory in 1997.Credit:NASA Larger image

From the dawn of humankind to a mere 400 years ago, all that we knew about our universe came through observations with the naked eye. Then Galileo turned his telescope toward the heavens in 1610. The world was in for an awakening.

Saturn, we learned, had rings. Jupiter had moons. That nebulous patch across the center of the sky called the Milky Way was not a cloud but a collection of countless stars. Within but a few years, our notion of the natural world would be forever changed. A scientific and societal revolution quickly ensued.

In the centuries that followed, telescopes grew in size and complexity and, of course, power. They were placed far from city lights and as far above the haze of the atmosphere as possible. Edwin Hubble, for whom the Hubble Telescope is named, used the largest telescope of his day in the 1920s at the Mt. Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, Calif., to discover galaxies beyond our own.

Hubble, the observatory, is the first major optical telescope to be placed in space, the ultimate mountaintop. Above the distortion of the atmosphere, far far above rain clouds and light pollution, Hubble has an unobstructed view of the universe. Scientists have used Hubble to observe the most distant stars and galaxies as well as the planets in our solar system.

Hubble's launch and deployment in April 1990 marked the most significant advance in astronomy since Galileo's telescope. Our view of the universe and our place within it has never been the same.

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The Hubble Story | NASA

In December 2013 the Hubble telescope spotted water vapour above Europa But follow-up observations have failed to make the same observation The vapour was thought to be a sign of plumes of liquid on the surface Their disappearance is a mystery and several theories have been proposed Dr Retherford tells Space.com that it is likely just due to suitable conditions not being present at the time of the repeated observations But it could more worryingly be that the initial observation was incorrect

By Jonathan O'Callaghan for MailOnline

Published: 11:44 EST, 5 September 2014 | Updated: 14:48 EST, 5 September 2014

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It has been suggested that geysers spurting out of Jupiters moon Europa may be an opportunity to spot alien life originating beneath the surface.

This was based on observations by the Hubble Space Telescope in December 2013 that saw water vapour being ejected from the moon, lending evidence to the existence of jets.

But now scientists are somewhat baffled as they have been unable to explain why follow-up observations have failed to spot the same geysers.

In December 2013 the Hubble telescope spotted water vapour above Europa. But follow-up observations have failed to make the same observation. The vapour was thought to be a sign of plumes of liquid on the surface (illustration shown). Their disappearance is a mystery and several theories have been proposed

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Disappearance of geysers from Jupiter's Europa moon leaves scientists baffled