The Hubble Space Telescope Part 1
The Hubble Space Telescope Part 1 contains 25 of the top 100 images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a telescope in orbit around the Earth, named after astronomer Edwin Hubble. Its position outside the Earth's atmosphere provides significant advantages over ground-based telescopes - images are not blurred by the atmosphere, there is no background from light scattered by the air, and the Hubble can observe ultra-violet light that is normally absorbed by the ozone layer in observations made from Earth.
Composite ultraviolet-visible-infrared image of NGC 1512
This picture is a multi-wavelength composite made by seven individual exposures made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA, Dan Maoz |
The Red Spider Nebula
Huge waves are sculpted in this two-lobed nebula some 3000 light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius. This warm planetary nebula harbours one of the hottest stars known and its powerful stellar winds generate waves 100 billion kilometres high.
| Photo by: ESA & Garrelt Mellema |
The gigantic Pinwheel galaxy
The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy about 27 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA |
Young stars sculpt gas
This Hubble Space Telescope view shows one of the most dynamic and intricately detailed star-forming regions in space, located 210,000 light-years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage |
Two merging galaxies
Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), the newest camera on NASA, ESA Hubble Space Telescope, has captured a spectacular pair of galaxies engaged in a celestial dance of cat and mouse.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA, Holland Ford |
NGC 6397 Star Cluster
This Hubble Space Telescope view of the core of one of the nearest globular star clusters, called NGC 6397, resembles a treasure chest of glittering jewels. The cluster is located 8,200 light-years away in the constellation Ara.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team |
Edge-On View of NGC 4013 Galaxy
The Hubble telescope has snapped this remarkable view of a perfectly 'edge-on' galaxy, NGC 4013. This new Hubble picture reveals with exquisite detail huge clouds of dust and gas extending along, as well as far above, the galaxy's main disk.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team |
Ghostly Reflections in the Pleiades
The Hubble Space Telescope has caught the eerie, wispy tendrils of a dark interstellar cloud being destroyed by the passage of one of the brightest stars in the Pleiades star cluster. Like a flashlight beam shining off the wall of a cave, the star is reflecting light off the surface of pitch black clouds of cold gas laced with dust. These are called reflection nebulae.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team |
The Large Magellanic Cloud
Glittering stars and wisps of gas create a breathtaking backdrop for the self-destruction of a massive star, called supernova 1987A, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby galaxy.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team |
NGC 3132 Pool of Light
NGC 3132 is a striking example of a planetary nebula. This expanding cloud of gas, surrounding a dying star, is known to amateur astronomers in the southern hemisphere as the Eight-Burst or the Southern Ring Nebula.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team |
Crab Nebula
The Crab Nebula is one of the most intricately structured and highly dynamical objects ever observed. The new Hubble image of the Crab was assembled from 24 individual exposures taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and is the highest resolution image of the entire Crab Nebula ever made.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA and Allison Loll/Jeff Hester |
Light and Shadow in the Carina Nebula
Previously unseen details of a mysterious, complex structure within the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) are revealed by this image of the Keyhole Nebula, obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope.
| Photo by: NASA/ESA, The Hubble Heritage Team |
Phantom Galaxy
In the new Hubble image of the galaxy M74 we can also see a smattering of bright pink regions decorating the spiral arms
| Photo by: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage |
The Whirlpool Galaxy
The graceful, winding arms of the majestic spiral galaxy M51 (NGC 5194) appear like a grand spiral staircase sweeping through space. They are actually long lanes of stars and gas laced with dust.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith |
ghostly star-forming pillar of gas and dust
Resembling a nightmarish beast rearing its head from a crimson sea, this celestial object is actually just a pillar of gas and dust called the Cone Nebula.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA |
Celestial Fireworks
Resembling the puffs of smoke and sparks from a summer fireworks display in this image from NASA ESA Hubble Space Telescope, these delicate filaments are actually sheets of debris from a stellar explosion in a neighboring galaxy.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team |
N83B Nebula
Extremely intense radiation from newly born, ultra-bright stars has blown a glowing spherical bubble in the nebula N83B, also known as NGC 1748.
| Photo by: ESA, NASA, Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri |
The Spirograph Nebula
Glowing like a multi-faceted jewel, the planetary nebula IC 418 lies about 2, 000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lepus. In this picture, the Hubble telescope reveals some remarkable textures weaving through the nebula. Their origin, however, is still uncertain.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team |
Hubbles Variable Nebula
Hubble's variable nebula is named (like the Hubble telescope itself) after the American astronomer Edwin P. Hubble, who carried out some ofthe early studies of this object. It is a fan-shaped cloud of gas and dust which is illuminated by R Monocerotis (R Mon), the bright star at the bottom end of the nebula.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team |
Seyfert 2 active galaxy
NASA, ESA Hubble Space Telescope's face-on snapshot of the small spiral galaxy NGC 7742. But NGC 7742 is not a run-of-the-mill spiral galaxy. In fact, this spiral is known to be a Seyfert 2 active galaxy, a type of galaxy that is probably powered by a black hole residing in its core.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA, Hubble Space Telescope |
Colours in the Tarantula
The Tarantula is situated 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) in the Southern sky and is clearly visible to the naked eye as a large milky patch.
| Photo by: ESA/NASA, ESO and Danny LaCrue |
A Grazing Encounter
In the direction of the constellation Canis Major, two spiral galaxies pass by each other like majestic ships in the night.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA, Hubble Space Telescope |
Extreme star cluster bursts into life
The star-forming region NGC 3603 - seen here in the latest Hubble Space Telescope image - contains one of the most impressive massive young star clusters in the Milky Way. Bathed in gas and dust the cluster formed in a huge rush of star formation thought to have occurred around a million years ago. The hot blue stars at the core are responsible for carving out a huge cavity in the gas seen to the right of the star cluster in NGC 3603’s centre.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage |
Stellar spire in the Eagle Nebula
Appearing like a winged fairy-tale creature poised on a pedestal, this object is actually a billowing tower of cold gas and dust rising from a stellar nursery called the Eagle Nebula. The soaring tower is 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometres high, about twice the distance from our Sun to the next nearest star.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team |
Mars Closest Approach 2007
The NASA ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this close-up of the red planet Mars when it was just 88 million kilometers away. This colour image was assembled from a series of exposures taken within 36 hours of the Mars closest approach with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.
| Photo by: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team |
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