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heic1211 — Science Release

Hubble unmasks ghost galaxies

10 July 2012: Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study some of the smallest and faintest galaxies in our cosmic neighbourhood. These galaxies are fossils of the early Universe: they have barely changed for 13 billion years. The discovery could help explain the so-called “missing satellite” problem, where only a handful of satellite galaxies have been found around the Milky Way, against the thousands that are predicted by theories.

heic1210 — Photo Release

A geyser of hot gas flowing from a star

3 July 2012: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new image of Herbig-Haro 110, a geyser of hot gas flowing from a newborn star.

heic1209 — Science Release

Dramatic change spotted on a faraway planet

28 June 2012: Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have seen dramatic changes in the upper atmosphere of a faraway planet. Just after a violent flare on its parent star bathed it in intense X-ray radiation, the planet’s atmosphere gave off a powerful burst of evaporation. The observations give a tantalising glimpse of the changing climates and weather on planets outside our Solar System.

heic1208 — Photo Release

A trick of perspective — chance alignment mimics a cosmic collision

14 June 2012: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a highly detailed image of a pair of overlapping galaxies called NGC 3314. While the two galaxies look as if they are in the midst of a collision, this is in fact a trick of perspective: the two just happen to appear in the same direction from our vantage point.

heic1207 — Photo Release

Hubble observes a dwarf galaxy with a bright nebula

10 May 2012: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has made detailed observations of the dwarf galaxy NGC 2366. While it lacks the elegant spiral arms of many larger galaxies, NGC 2366 is home to a bright, star-forming nebula and is close enough for astronomers to discern its individual stars.

heic1206 — Photo Release

Hubble's panoramic view of a turbulent star-making region

17 April 2012: Several million stars are vying for attention in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of a raucous stellar breeding ground in 30 Doradus, located in the heart of the Tarantula nebula.

heic1205 — Photo Release

Glittering jewels of Messier 9

16 March 2012: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced the most detailed image so far of Messier 9, a globular star cluster located close to the centre of the galaxy. This ball of stars is too faint to see with the naked eye, yet Hubble can see over 250 000 individual stars shining in it.

heic1204 — Science Release

Hubble reveals a new class of extrasolar planet

21 February 2012: Observations by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have come up with a new class of planet, a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. It’s smaller than Uranus but larger than Earth.

heic1203 — Science Release

Hubble finds relic of a shredded galaxy

15 February 2012: Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have found a cluster of young blue stars surrounding a mid-sized black hole called HLX-1. The discovery suggests that the black hole formed in the core of a now-disintegrated dwarf galaxy. The findings have important implications for understanding the evolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies.

heic1202 — Photo Release

Classic portrait of a barred spiral galaxy — Hubble Observes NGC 1073

3 February 2012: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, which is found in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is a similar barred spiral, and the study of galaxies such as NGC 1073 helps astronomers learn more about our celestial home.

heic1201 — Science Release

Hubble pinpoints furthest protocluster of galaxies ever seen

10 January 2012: Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have uncovered a cluster of galaxies in the initial stages of development, making it the most distant such grouping ever observed in the early Universe.

heic1118 — Photo Release

Young star rebels against its parent cloud

15 December 2011: Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 has captured this image of a giant cloud of hydrogen gas illuminated by a bright young star. The image shows how violent the end stages of the star-formation process can be, with the young object shaking up its stellar nursery.

heic1117 — Science Release

Hubble uncovers tiny galaxies bursting with starbirth in early Universe

10 November 2011: Using its infrared vision to peer nine billion years back in time, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered an extraordinary population of tiny, young galaxies that are brimming with star formation.

heic1116 — Science Release

Hubble directly observes the disc around a black hole

4 November 2011: A team of scientists has used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to observe a quasar accretion disc — a brightly glowing disc of matter that is slowly being sucked into its galaxy’s central black hole. Their study makes use of a novel technique that uses gravitational lensing to give an immense boost to the power of the telescope. The incredible precision of the method has allowed astronomers to directly measure the disc’s size and plot the temperature across different parts of the disc.

heic1115 — Photo Release

Hubble survey carries out a dark matter census

13 October 2011: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been used to make an image of galaxy cluster MACS J1206.2-0847. The apparently distorted shapes of distant galaxies in the background is caused by an invisible substance called dark matter, whose gravity bends and distorts their light rays. MACS 1206 has been observed as part of a new survey of galaxy clusters using Hubble.

heic1114 — Photo Release

Galaxy caught blowing bubbles

29 September 2011: Hubble’s famous images of galaxies typically show elegant spirals or soft-edged ellipses. But these neat forms are only representative of large galaxies. Smaller galaxies like the dwarf irregular galaxy Holmberg II come in many shapes and types that are harder to classify. This galaxy’s indistinct shape is punctuated by huge glowing bubbles of gas, captured in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

heic1113 — Science Release

Hubble movies provide unprecedented view of supersonic jets from young stars

31 August 2011: Astronomers have combined two decades of Hubble observations to make unprecedented movies revealing never-before-seen details of the birth pangs of new stars. This sheds new light on how stars like the Sun form.

heic1112 — Photo Release

Four unusual views of the Andromeda Galaxy

21 July 2011: The Andromeda Galaxy is revealed in unprecedented detail in four archive observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. They show stars and structure in the galaxy’s disc, the halo of stars that surrounds it, and a stream of stars left by a companion galaxy as it was torn apart and pulled in by the galaxy’s gravitational forces.

heic1111 — Science Release

Pandora’s Cluster — a galactic crash investigation

22 June 2011: A team of scientists has studied the galaxy cluster Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora’s Cluster. They have pieced together the cluster’s complex and violent history using telescopes in space and on the ground, including the Hubble Space Telescope and ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Abell 2744 seems to be the result of a simultaneous pile-up of at least four separate galaxy clusters and this complex collision has produced strange effects that have never been seen together before.

heic1110 — Photo Release

Spectacular Hubble view of Centaurus A

16 June 2011: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a close-up view of the galaxy Centaurus A. Hubble’s out-of-this-world location and world-class Wide Field Camera 3 instrument reveal a dramatic picture of a dynamic galaxy in flux.

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