Hubble Space Telescope

Black hole best friends! Hubble and @nasachandraxray detected the closest confirmed pair of supermassive black holes, at just 300 light-years apart. These two black holes were once at the cores of their own galaxies, which merged and brought them into close proximity. Someday, these black holes will merge too. When this happens, they'll rattle the fabric of space and time with gravitational waves. In the meantime, you can find out more about this pair at the link in our bio! #NASA #Hubble #Chandra #BlackHole #science #news #video #astronomy #unvierse #cosmos

For over three decades, Hubble has transformed science fiction into science fact as the mission observes the final frontier! For example, the Frontier Fields program used the power of massive galaxy clusters deep in space, like this image of Abell 370, which is about 4 billion light-years away. The gravity of these clusters is so massive that it distorts and magnifies the light from distant galaxies behind the clusters, serving as a natural magnifying lens. Happy #StarTrekDay ! 🖖 You can boldly go and learn more about Hubble's observations at the link in our bio. Image description: A galaxy cluster fills the image, showing differently shaped yellowish galaxies against black space. A foreground star shines at lower left. Warped, stretched lines of light throughout show gravitationally lensed galaxies. Image credit: NASA, ESA, and STScI #NASA #Hubble #StarTrek #Trekkie #galaxy #space #science #scifi #astronomy

Hey, Saturn! 👋 This weekend, the ringed planet reaches opposition. That means it's orbiting opposite to the Sun, so Saturn will appear brighter in the night sky – be sure to look up! Hubble captured this view of Saturn when it was near opposition back in 2020. Two if its icy moons are also visible in this image: Mimas at right, and Enceladus at bottom. Image description: This image shows Saturn tilted slightly downward, giving a view of its rings. The planet has atmospheric bands ranging in different shades of brown and cream. The rings are white and gray, with a fairly wide, black gap visible between the inner and outer rings. Two small white dots below and to the right of Saturn are moons. Image credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley), and the OPAL Team #NASA #Hubble #Saturn #planet #stargazing #astronomy #astrophotogrpahy #universe #cosmos #telescope

You can't burst this bubble. 🫧 The Bubble Nebula is located about 7,100 light-years away. The big "bubble" is material shedding off a star at its center! The star is about 4 million years old, and in 10-20 million years it will likely detonate in a supernova explosion. Hubble made its first observations of the Bubble Nebula #OTD in 1992, and captured this nebula again to celebrate Hubble's 26th anniversary in 2016. #NASA #Hubble #OnThisDay #history #nebula #space #stars #science #astronomy

Happy #HubbleFriday ! 💫 The end of the week means a new Hubble image, and this view shows a spectacular spiral galaxy called IC 4709, located about 240 million light-years away. This image shows its faint halo and swirling galactic disk, filled with stars and bands of dust. The bright, compact region at its center holds an active galactic nucleus with a black hole that's 65 million times more massive than our Sun. Learn more about this stellar sight at the link in our bio! Image description: A spiral galaxy with a bright-white core, a glowing disk thick with swirling patterns of dark dust, and a faint halo around the disk. It is on a black background with a few small, distant galaxies and some foreground stars around it. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Koss, A, Barth #NASA #Hubble #Friday #galaxy #stars #space #science #astronomy #universe

Mars was once wet – so what happened to its water? 💧 Hubble teamed up with the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission to find out more about how much water there was, what happened to it, and how its atoms escape into space. Discover more at the link in our bio! #NASA #Hubble #Mars #water #video #science #space #planet #astronomy #MAVEN

A new sonification is sweeping the galaxy!🌀🎧 NGC 6872 is a large spiral galaxy with two elegant arms stretching to the upper right and lower left. Just above and to the left of NGC 6872 is another smaller galaxy. These galaxies, each of which likely has a supermassive black hole at its center, are being drawn toward one another by gravity. Visual Description: Galaxy NGC 6872 is shown as a static image. The central portion of the galaxy is bright in shades of pinks and purples. The galaxy’s elongated arms transition from being mostly pink to mostly blue as they stretch toward our upper right and lower left. NGC 6872 is backed by a field of stars and distant galaxies, with a neighboring spiral galaxy beside it, to our left. The two galaxies, as well as several bright stars, are engulfed in a neon purple cloud of X-ray gas. An illustrated radial arm sweeps clockwise around the images, starting at twelve o’clock, triggering musical sounds as different elements are encountered. The volume of the music is mapped to brightness, and the pitch is related to the distance from the center; the farther away, the higher the pitch. In the @NASAHubble portion of sonification, a low drone represents the core of NGC 6872, while higher, brighter sounds represent the extended spiral arms. Low plucked sounds represent background galaxies, and cymbals represent foreground stars. In the @NASAChandraXray portion of sonification, wind-like sounds represent the neon purple X-ray cloud, and more compact background objects are presented as chirping birds. 🤔What’s sonification? Sonification is a process that translates astronomical data into sound, similar to how digital data are more routinely turned into images. This translation process preserves the science of the data from its original digital state but provides an alternative pathway to experiencing the data. Sonification Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida) Image Credit: X-ray (Chandra): NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical (Hubble): NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt, L. Frattare, and J. Major; #sound #music #nasa #sonification #accessibility #space #science #Chandra25

Shine bright, NGC 5033 💖 The glowing heart of this galaxy is called an active galactic nucleus. Seen at the center of this #HubbleClassic view, it's powered by a supermassive black hole and shines brightly across the whole electromagnetic spectrum. NGC 5033 is located about 40 million light-years away, in the constellation Canes Venatici. It has many similar qualities to our home Milky Way Galaxy: NGC 5033 is also about 100,000 light-years across, and has spiral arms dotted with blue patches of ongoing star formation. Its relative proximity to Earth makes it an ideal target for astronomers to study its active galactic nucleus in detail. Read more at the link in our bio! Image description: A close-up shot of a spiral galaxy. A bright core is seen edge-on, with spiral arms surrounding it. These arms are full of dark brown dust and hazy blue star formation. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt #NASA #Hubble #classic #galaxy #space #stars #science #astronomy #universe #telescope

📍 Andromeda Galaxy ➡️ 2.5 million light-years 🏠 Andromeda constellation We’ve reached our final #MeetYourCosmicNeighbors destination: the Andromeda Galaxy! With almost the same mass as our home galaxy, Andromeda is headed for a collision with the Milky Way in 2-4 billion years. For now, we can admire its beauty from afar. As a spiral galaxy, Andromeda’s winding arms are one of its most remarkable features. Hubble zoomed in to get a close look at its rosy tendrils, revealing swathes of ionized gas. These regions — which are common in spiral and irregular galaxies — often indicate the presence of recent star formation. To investigate the spiral galaxy’s stellar properties, Hubble’s instruments peered through hedges of gas and observed a valuable sample of stars. This concludes our intergalactic journey for Meet Your Cosmic Neighbors! We hope you enjoyed this series, and that you look forward to more Hubble science. Catch up on our latest images at the link in our bio! Image credits: NASA, ESA, M. Boyer (Space Telescope Science Institute), and J. Dalcanton (University of Washington); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Image descriptions: 1 - Thousands of distant stars crowd the view against black space. Tendrils of red nebulosity bloom across the image. 2 - Thousands of distant stars crowd the view against black space. A rosy, bloomlike tendril of red nebulosity shines near the center-top. #NASA #Hubble #Andromeda #galaxy #space #science #stars #astronomy #universe

📍 Andromeda III ➡️ 2.44 million light-years 🏠 Andromeda constellation This dwarf galaxy is a faint collection of old stars, apparently devoid of new star formation and younger stars. It orbits around the more massive neighboring Andromeda Galaxy, and astronomers are intrigued by the way some of Andromeda’s satellite galaxies – like this one – orbit in a flat plane around the galaxy. This is like how planets in our solar system orbit around our Sun. This alignment is puzzling because models of galaxy formation don’t show dwarf galaxies falling into such orderly formations, but rather moving around the galaxy randomly in all directions, and as they lose energy, the dwarf galaxies eventually merge into the larger galaxy. Observations like these call for future investigation to learn more about theories on galactic formation. Keep reading at the link in our bio! Image description: Several stars fill the image, more closely concentrated near the center. Foreground stars with diffraction spikes shine throughout as well. Image credit: NASA, ESA, and E. Skillman (University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) #MeetYourCosmicNeighbors #NASA #Hubble #space #science #stars #galaxy #universe #cosmos #astronomy

📍 NGC 261 ➡️ 200,000 light-years 🏠 Tucana constellation This emission nebula, located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, blooms a brilliant red in our next #MeetYourCosmicNeighbors image! NGC 261 is home to numerous stars hot enough to irradiate surrounding hydrogen gas, causing the cloud to emit a pinkish-red glow. The region contains molecular clouds, which are extremely dense and compact regions of gas and dust. Here, cradled in the cold areas of molecular hydrogen, is where most stars form. The combined power of Hubble’s instruments form a wide spectral coverage that helped capture the star-forming properties within the nebula. Learn more about the molecular clouds in NGC 261 at the link in our bio! Image description: Thousands of stars fill the image against black space, with a glowing, nebulous cloud of reddish pink dominating most of the lower right half of the view. Image credit: NASA, ESA, and L. C. Johnson (Northwestern University); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) #NASA #Hubble #space #stars #nebula #science #astronomy #universe #cosmos

📍 Pegasus Dwarf spheroidal galaxy ➡️ 2.7 million light-years 🏠 Pegasus constellation Welcome to a mini galaxy in our neck of the universe. This is one of at least 13 dwarf galaxies that orbit the massive Andromeda Galaxy, which is our Milky Way’s closest grand spiral neighbor. Dwarf spheroidal galaxies like this one are some of the dimmest and least massive galaxies known! They’re usually dominated by older and “middle-aged” stars, and don’t contain much gas. Discover more at the link in our bio! Image description: Several stars shine against black space. A few foreground stars with diffraction spikes throughout. Image credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Weisz (University of California - Berkeley); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) #MeetYourCosmicNeighbors #NASA #Hubble #galaxy #science #space #stars #astronomy #universe #pegasus