Announcements

4 August 2010: Although the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is mostly famous for its spectacular pictures this is only a small part of its capability. It is also possible to use a prism to spread out the light from all the stars and remote galaxies seen in a Hubble image into their component colours to create what are called slitless spectra. These can be used by astronomers to learn far more about the nature of astronomical objects — their distance, composition and likely nature. The Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF), based at ESO Headquarters in Garching, Germany, has processed a huge collection of slitless spectra from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys into a form ready for astronomers to use. The resultant set of more than 47 000 individual spectra is the largest of its kind ever created and will be a rich resource for future work. This spectral collection is a major contribution …

4 August 2010: A European-led team has used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to make a startling discovery about Saturn, the Solar System’s second largest planet [1]. The astronomers discovered that Saturn’s aurora, an ethereal ultraviolet glow that illuminates its upper atmosphere near the poles, dances in time to the beat of a mysterious radio emission. For years, scientists thought that the Saturn Kilometric Radiation (SKR), which shines from Saturn’s polar regions, pulsed in time with the rotation of the planet. However, more recent studies have shown that the rate speeds up and slows down with time. Since planets spin at a constant rate, Saturn’s rotation cannot explain an irregular pulsing of the SKR. The team, led by the University of Leicester’s Jonathan Nichols, has discovered that the planet’s aurora varies in time with the SKR, pointing to a common explanation for both. Nichols says: “This is an important discovery for two reasons. …

30 June 2010: We are still celebrating Hubble’s 20th anniversary! Are you? Show us what traces of Hubble’s influence you have found in pop culture. For the past 20 years the Hubble Space Telescope has brought you the most breathtaking images of the Universe. Now it’s your turn to look for astonishing examples of Hubble pictures, or pictures of Hubble, used in unexpected places. ESA/Hubble challenges you to discover examples of Hubble in pop culture, take a picture of them and submit them together with a caption to the Hubble Pop Culture Competition. Have you seen a CD cover that features a beautiful Hubble image? A Hubble-inspired tattoo? Let us know!  We will award prizes for the most artistic, the weirdest, the funniest, the largest and the smallest entries, including: iPod Touches, books, DVDs, posters and more. Keep uploading pictures until 31 July 2010.  For complete rules and regulations, see the official webpage.

22 June 2010: This Hubblecast features a spectacular new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image — one of the largest ever released of a star-forming region. It highlights N11, part of a complex network of gas clouds and star clusters within our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. This region of energetic star formation is one of the most active in the nearby Universe.

23 April 2010: In honour of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 20th anniversary, the European Space Agency (ESA) is proud to present the ESA “Hubble Pop Culture” competition — a free competition that calls for everyone who loves Hubble to find examples of it in popular culture. Have you seen a Hubble image on the cover of a CD? Has Hubble been used as inspiration for art? Let us know and you could win great prizes! When you find an interesting example of Hubble within popular culture, take a picture, write a quick caption and submit it to us. We are looking for examples that fit in the following five categories: 1. Most Artistic 2. Weirdest 3. Funniest 4. Largest 5. Smallest Complete rules and regulations can be found here:  http://www.spacetelescope.org/hubblepopculture  The entries should be submitted on or before 31 July 2010. Links Competition web page: http://www.spacetelescope.org/hubblepopculture Contact Colleen Sharkey ESO, Garching, Germany …

23 April 2010: In honour of Hubble’s 20th anniversary, the European online home for Hubble is being revamped. The streamlined and contemporary new look will highlight amazing Hubble images and videos while still maintaining the convenient and easy-to-use features of the previous site. The new site will also include brand-new elements including Hubble pictures of the week. Check out the cool new look, debuting on 23 April: http://www.spacetelescope.org

21 April 2010: The European Space Agency (ESA) in conjunction with American partners NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) will release a gorgeous new Hubble image that celebrates the venerable observatory’s 20th year in orbit. The Hubble anniversary images and videos will be posted on the revamped http://www.spacetelescope.org web site, the European home for Hubble science, at 10:00 CEST on Friday, 23 April 2010. April 24 2010 will mark the 20th anniversary of launch of the iconic telescope. A project that took decades to get to the launch pad, Hubble is responsible for many of the most recent fundamental cosmic discoveries, including: the deepest views of our Universe, a more accurate estimation of the age of the Universe, the characterisation of black holes in the cores of galaxies and exoplanets orbiting stars outside of our Solar System. ESA contributes a 15 percent share to Hubble's development and in return European astronomers …

15 April 2010: Gearing up for the 20th anniversary of the legendary space observatory, Dr. J takes a look at the story of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Born of an ambitious idea, it took decades for Hubble to become a reality. The project was complex and often faced huge setbacks but, ultimately, the powerful telescope took to the skies aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on 24 April 1990. Look back through the decades with this – the first of two special Hubble 20th anniversary Hubblecasts. And stay tuned for the next anniversary Hubblecast.

5 March 2010: This April will mark 20 years in orbit for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope! In honour of this incredible milestone, ESA, along with American partners NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) will offer a limited number of high-quality large Hubble prints to selected European science centres and planetariums. Click on the link below for more information and to sign up for this exciting opportunity.

9 December 2009: The Eyes on the Skies project initiated as part of International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) celebration now entering its final weeks has won an international accolade. After originally being selected as one of eight finalists from a field of over 254 entries from 39 countries, the Eyes on the Skies movie and book went on to receive the Special Jury Award for its high production value at the MEDEA 2009 Awards held in Berlin, Germany on 4 December. The annual MEDEA awards recognize excellence in media-rich educational materials. The competition's judges said that Eyes on the Skies is "a very well designed and attractive presentation of quite a challenging subject" and is "authoritative without being confusing." In this way, the project serves as "an excellent example of integrated educational narrative and complementary use of various media," the judges also said, owing in part to its "superb script." The Eyes …

2 December 2009: An elusive, very hot star at the centre of one of the most well-known and spectacular planetary nebulae has been directly detected. Using the brand-new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in six narrow band filters, researchers from the European Southern Observatory, the University of Manchester and CSIC (Granada, Spain) have located and partially characterized the dying star. Astronomers estimate that the star, which began its life as few times more massive then the Sun, is now is a little over half the mass of the Sun. After it expelled its outer envelope some 2200 years ago, the star now has an extremely high temperature, anywhere from 200 000 K to 400 000 K — one of the hottest ever detected. It is fading very rapidly and will cool down very slowly to a small and cold white dwarf. The Bug Nebula (also known as the Butterfly Nebula), or NGC 6302, …

10 November 2009: A never-before-seen view of the turbulent heart of our Milky Way galaxy provided by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and its companion Great Observatories (the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory) is being unveiled on 10 Nov 2009. This event will commemorate the 400 years since Galileo first turned his telescope to the heavens in 1609. Although best known for its visible-light images, Hubble also observes over a limited range of infrared light and this sweeping panorama is the sharpest infrared picture ever made of the galactic centre region. The composite image – made up of an image from each telescope – features the spectacle of stellar evolution: from vibrant regions of star birth, to young hot stars, to old cool stars, to seething remnants of stellar death called black holes. This activity occurs against a fiery backdrop in the crowded, hostile environment of the galaxy's core, the …

30 October 2009: The release of version 2 of the popular ESA/ESO/NASA Photoshop FITS Liberator image processing software has meant that it is even easier and faster to create colour images using raw observations from a range of telescopes, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, ESO’s Very Large Telescope and ESA’s XMM-Newton Telescope. Version 1 of the ESA/ESO/NASA Photoshop FITS Liberator was completed in July 2004 by imaging scientists at the European Space Agency, the European Southern Observatory and NASA. FITS stands for Flexible Image Transport System. This single file format archives nearly all images of stars, nebulae and galaxies produced by major telescopes around the world. Before July 2004 this file format was primarily accessible to scientists working with highly specialised image processing tools. More than 60,000 laypeople, educators and amateur astronomers have started using the Liberator since the release of v.1 in July 2004. The FITS Liberator …

13 October 2009: A bright and bizarre galaxy called NGC 2623 is the focus of this Hubblecast. The single galaxy is the product of the merger of two distinct galaxies. The union has spawned new star formation and activated one of the supermassive black holes found at the centres of the two original galaxies, causing it to emit light across a wide spectrum. The galaxy is part of the GOALS (The Great Observatory All-sky LIRG) Survey that combines the powers of four space telescopes to study over 200 of the most luminous infrared galaxies in the local Universe. ESA/HubbleVisual design & Editing: Martin KornmesserAnimations: Martin Kornmesser & Patrik Jonsson, Greg Novak & Joel Primack, UC Santa CruzWeb Technical Support: Lars Holm Nielsen & Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Colleen SharkeyNarration: Dr. JMusic: movetwo & John Dyson from the CD DarklightStill images: XMM-Newton: ESA/Chandra: NASA/Galex: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Spitzer: NASA/JPL-Caltech Directed by: Colleen SharkeyExecutive director: Lars Lindberg …

9 September 2009: After more than three months of calibration and testing, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is reopening its rejuvenated eyes to begin probing the Universe once again. Dr. J reveals the stunning new images and the fascinating science behind them.

22 June 2009: The fifth and final mission to the iconic Hubble Space Telescope was a long time coming. After a delay in the fall of 2008, spring brought new hope and, on 11 May, the seven Space Shuttle crew members headed for the mission of a lifetime.

11 May 2009: In a bright, loud and visibly perfect launch, space shuttle Atlantis lifted off from Kennedy Space Center at 2:01 p.m. EDT (20:01 CEST). The seven astronauts of STS-125 are headed for their rendezvous with Hubble Space Telescope. Over an 11-day mission, veteran astronauts Scott Altman, Gregory C. Johnson, John Grunsfeld and Mike Massimino and rookies Andrew Feustel, Michael Good and Megan McArthur will install two new instruments, repair two inactive ones and perform the component replacements that will keep the telescope functioning into at least 2014. Atlantis also will carry a replacement Science Instrument Command and Data Handling Unit for Hubble. Astronauts will install the unit on the telescope, removing the one that stopped working on Sept. 27, 2008, delaying the servicing mission until the replacement was ready.

11 May 2009: The Hubble community bids farewell to the soon-to-be decommissioned Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. In tribute to Hubble's longest running optical camera, a planetary nebula has been imaged as WFPC2's final "pretty picture". This planetary nebula is known as Kohoutek 4-55 (or K 4-55). It is one of a series of planetary nebulae that were named after their discoverer, Czech astronomer Luboš Kohoutek. A planetary nebula is formed from material in the outer layers of a red giant star that were expelled into interstellar space when the star was in the late stages of its life. Ultraviolet radiation emitted from the remaining hot core of the star ionises the ejected gas shells, causing them to glow. In the specific case of K 4-55, a bright inner ring is surrounded an asymmetric, fainter layer. The entire system is then surrounded by a faint red halo …

9 April 2009: For nineteen years, NASA/ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope has made some of the most dramatic discoveries in the history of astronomy but it has also helped scientists learn more about our own Solar System. From its vantage point 600 km above the Earth, Hubble has studied every planet in our Solar System except Mercury where light from the Sun would damage its instruments. Hubble has captured the impact of a comet on Jupiter, immense storms on Neptune and even tiny dwarf planets at the edge of our Solar System. The veteran telescope keeps a watchful eye on our solar backyard.

3 April 2009: In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope photographed the winning target in the Space Telescope Science Institute's "You Decide" competition. The image of the winner, a group of interacting galaxies called Arp 274, was revealed during ESO's "Around the World in 80 Telescopes" webcast. The striking object received 67,021 votes out of the nearly 140,000 votes cast for the six candidate targets. On 1-2 April Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 captured Arp 274 (also known as NGC 5679). Arp 274 is a system of three galaxies that appear to be partially overlapping in the image, although they may be at somewhat different distances. The spiral shapes of two of these galaxies appear mostly intact. The third galaxy (far left) is more compact, but shows evidence of star formation. Two of the three galaxies are forming new stars at a high rate. This …