Astronomers think that supermassive black holes exist at the center of most galaxies. Not only do the galaxies and black holes seem to co-exist, they are apparently inextricably linked in their evolution. To better understand this symbiotic relationship, scientists have turned to rapidly growing black holes -- so-called active galactic nucleus (AGN) -- to study how they are affected by their galactic environments.

The latest data from Chandra and Spitzer show that IC 4970, the small galaxy at the top of the image, contains an AGN, but one that is heavily cocooned in gas and dust. This means in optical light telescopes, like the VLT, there is little to see. X-rays and infrared light, however, can penetrate this veil of material and reveal the light show that is generated as material heats up before falling onto the black hole (seen as a bright point-like source).

Despite this obscuring gas and dust around IC 4970, the Chandra data suggest that there is not enough hot gas in IC 4970 to fuel the growth of the AGN. Where, then, does the food supply for this black hole come from? The answer lies with its partner galaxy, NGC 6872. These two galaxies are in the process of undergoing a collision, and the gravitational attraction from IC 4970 has likely pulled over some of NGC 6872's deep reservoir of cold gas (seen prominently in the Spitzer data), providing a new fuel supply to power the giant black hole.

The 13-day flight will deliver a pressurized module, known as Tranquility, which will provide room for much of the space station's life support systems. Attached to the node is a cupola -- a robotic control station with six windows around its sides and another in the center -- that provides a 360-degree view around the station.

Reporters and new media journalists, including bloggers, must apply for credentials to attend the launch or cover the mission from other NASA centers. To be accredited, reporters must work for verifiable news-gathering organizations. Journalists may need to submit requests for credentials at multiple NASA facilities as early as Jan. 12. No substitutions of credentials are allowed at any NASA facility.

Additional time may be required to process accreditation requests by journalists from certain designated countries. Designated countries include those with which the United States has no diplomatic relations, countries on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, those under U.S. sanction or embargo, and countries associated with proliferation concerns. Please contact the accrediting NASA center for details. Journalists should confirm they have been accredited before they travel.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER
Reporters applying for credentials at Kennedy should submit requests via the Web at:

Accredited media representatives with mission badges will have access to Kennedy from launch through the end of the mission. The application deadline for mission badges is Jan. 22 for all reporters requesting credentials.

Reporters with special logistic requests for Kennedy, such as space for satellite trucks, trailers, electrical connections or work space, must contact Laurel Lichtenberger at laurel.a.lichtenberger@nasa.gov by Jan. 22 There is no longer free wireless Internet access provided at Kennedy's news center.

Work space in the news center and the news center annex is provided on a first-come basis, limited to one space per organization. To set up temporary telephone, fax, ISDN or network lines, media representatives must make arrangements with BellSouth at 800-213-4988. Reporters must have an assigned seat in the Kennedy newsroom prior to setting up lines. To obtain an assigned seat, contact Patricia Christian at patricia.christian-1@nasa.gov. Journalists must have a public affairs escort to all other areas of Kennedy except the Launch Complex 39 cafeteria.

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
Reporters may obtain credentials for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston by calling the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 or by presenting STS-130 mission credentials from Kennedy. Media representatives planning to cover the mission only from Johnson need to apply for credentials only at Johnson. The application deadline for mission badges is Jan. 22 for all reporters requesting credentials.

Journalists covering the mission from Johnson using Kennedy credentials must contact the Johnson newsroom by Jan. 25 to arrange workspace, phone lines and other logistics. Johnson is responsible for credentialing media if the shuttle lands at NASA's White Sands Space Harbor, N.M. If a landing is imminent at White Sands, Johnson will arrange credentials.

DRYDEN FLIGHT RESEARCH CENTER
Notice for a space shuttle landing at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base in California could be short. Domestic media outlets should consider accrediting Los Angeles-based personnel who could travel quickly to Dryden. Deadlines for submitting Dryden accreditation requests are Jan. 12 for non-U.S. media, regardless of citizenship, and Feb. 11 for U.S. media who are U.S. citizens or who have permanent residency status.

For Dryden media credentials, U.S. citizens representing domestic media outlets must provide their full name, date of birth, place of birth, media organization, driver's license number with the name of the issuing state, and the last six digits of their social security number.

In addition to the above requirements, foreign media representatives, regardless of citizenship, must provide data including their citizenship, visa or passport number and its expiration date. Foreign nationals representing either domestic or foreign media who have permanent residency status must provide their alien registration number and expiration date.

Journalists should fax requests for credentials on company letterhead to 661-276-3566. E-mailed requests to Alan Brown at alan.brown@nasa.gov are acceptable for reporters who have been accredited at Dryden within the past year. Requests must include a phone number and business e-mail address for follow-up contact. Journalists who previously requested credentials will not have to do so again.

NASA PUBLIC AFFAIRS CONTACTS:
Kennedy Space Center: Allard Beutel, 321-867-2468, allard.beutel@nasa.gov
Johnson Space Center: James Hartsfield, 281-483-5111, james.a.hartsfield@nasa.gov
Dryden Flight Research Center: Leslie Williams, 661-276-3893, leslie.a.williams@nasa.gov

For information about the STS-130 mission, visit:

News briefings held during the meeting will feature new results on dwindling groundwater supplies in California and other parts of the world, the impact of the current "quiet" solar cycle on Earth's atmosphere, efforts to track near-Earth objects such as comets and asteroids, and satellite views of the global circulation of greenhouse gases. In addition, NASA scientists and their colleagues who use NASA research capabilities will present noteworthy findings during scientific sessions that are open to registered journalists.

For a complete list of NASA-related news briefings at the meeting, visit:

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

NASA is one of six departments and agencies working to spur innovation by making it easier for high-tech companies to identify collaborative, entrepreneurial opportunities. Government agencies are home to treasure troves of data and information, too much of which is underutilized by the private sector because it is either not easily found or exists in cumbersome formats. NASA and the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration in the Department of Health and Human Services, the Agricultural Research Service in the Department of Agriculture, the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Department of Commerce and the Department of Energy are working together to increase access to information on publicly-funded technologies that are available for license, opportunities for federal funding and partnerships, and potential private-sector partners.

NASA's Innovative Partnerships Programs Office is working to establish an RSS feed to publicize technologies available for public licensing. By making information from multiple agencies available in RSS and XML feeds on Data.gov, the government empowers innovators to find the information they need and receive real-time updates, which can fuel entrepreneurial momentum, create new jobs, and strengthen economic growth. NASA's RSS feed will make these opportunities more visible to the commercial and research communities. NASA plans on having the feed operational by Dec. 31.

NASA also has undertaken an extensive effort to use the Internet and social media tools to engage the public on agency activities. NASA's home page on the Internet, http://www.nasa.gov, offers information on all of the agency's missions, research and discoveries.

In January 2009, nasa.gov capitalized on the agency's growing social media efforts by rolling out a new "Connect and Collaborate with NASA" page, at http://www.nasa.gov/connect. This provides the public with quick connections to the agency's pages on Twitter, Facebook, UStream, YouTube, Flickr and MySpace, as well as NASA podcasts and vodcasts on iTunes. The page also provides links to agency chats, Tweetup events, RSS feeds and the agency's official blog.

The agency's social media presence was further expanded in November with the addition of NASA's Twitter feed to the homepage. The website offers links to NASA-related desktop "widgets" and opportunities for the public to collaborate directly with the agency through art contests, engineering challenges and imagery and data analysis.

Another new communication tool is Spacebook, a NASA internal expert networking utility. Spacebook has been used to improve collaboration across NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The Spacebook site allows new and established NASA staff to get to know the agency's diverse community of scientists, engineers, project managers and support personnel.

"Space doesn't explore itself. Science doesn't discover itself. People do that, and to do that they have to talk," said Emma Antunes, the project manager who also manages Goddard's Web site. "They have to trade questions and ideas. They have to connect. And, the more diverse the group, the more likely connections and conversations will lead to new ideas and innovation. Spacebook will enhance NASA's capacity to do just that."

For more information about NASA's use of the Internet and social media to interact with America, visit:

http//www.nasa.gov/connect

http://www.nasa.gov

"You could expect to see over 100 meteors per hour during the peak viewing," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "During the late evening hours of December 13, look for streaks of light radiating from a point near the star Castor in the constellation of Gemini, which will be high above the eastern horizon for mid-northern latitudes."

While a sign of the zodiac may have provided the name for the meteor shower, scientists have established the source as something more tangible. "We do know that the origin of the Geminids is a Near-Earth object called 3200 Phaeton," said Yeomans. "It is probably the remains of a comet that has burned off its ices after eons looping throughout the solar system. Phaeton has a trail of pebble and dust-sized debris that stream out behind it. Once every mid-December, Earth's orbit carries it into this stream of debris."

Since all other meteors showers are due to the sand-sized particles from active comets, it seems reasonable to assume that Phaeton is, or at least was, a comet. However, Phaeton has shown no cometary activity, so it is classified as an asteroid - the only asteroid to have an associated meteor shower.

"It is important to note that the orbits of Earth and Phaethon itself will not intersect," added Yeomans. "There is no chance the two will meet. But the result of our planet flying through its debris field is an opportunity for science and the chance to see Mother Nature at her best."

This year the peak of the Geminids is expected the night of December 13/14 (9:10 pm PST/12:10 am EST/05:10 UT), coinciding with a nearly perfect new moon. Many tens of meteors per hour will be visible in the few nights surrounding those dates. More information on the observing conditions is at: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/08dec_geminids.htm.

See JPL's Geminid Facebook event page at http://bit.ly/4A2lYS.

"Thanks guys," said Paul Roberts, 50, looking at his NASA Engineering and Safety co-workers, "for giving me back my life."

Garver gave Exceptional Bravery Medals to Jeff Stewart and Perry Wagner of Goddard Space Flight Center, Chip McCann of Johnson Space Center and Mike Kirsch, a Langley engineer and lead of the Composite Crew Module team.

She reminded everyone that NASA's products were produced by NASA's people.

"I am just so thrilled that you all were there," she told the foursome getting the awards.

"There" was a November 4 meeting in Langley's Building 1256, where the team was getting ready for a module test.

"We were sort of sitting back, looking at data, and suddenly he had his head back and it sounded like he was snoring," Wagner remembered of Roberts. "We were sort of kidding him that it looked like the meeting was boring him, but he didn't respond."

Stewart shook Roberts, and finding no response, laid him on the floor.

Wagner, McCann and Stewart immediately began administering CPR, as best they could remember how.

"I think I'd had the training most recently," McCann said, "and that was about six years ago."

Said Wagner: "I remember, like all of us, that we breathed on a mannequin in grade school. That was the last time."

Stewart was more specific. "About 34 years ago, when I was in the Boy Scouts."

But each took a role: Stewart working on Roberts' chest, Wagner doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation when Roberts began to turn blue and McCann monitoring Roberts for a pulse rate.

"As soon as we put him down and tried to find a pulse on his wrist -- and actually I thought I felt a faint pulse there -- Jeff put his hand on Paul's chest and said 'I don't feel his heart beating here,' " McCann said. "By then, I didn't feel anything on his wrist, and that was the time Jeff started doing the compression."

The years since CPR training fostered uncertainty.

"It was a struggle for all of us," said McCann. "None of us were too sure what we were supposed to be doing. We were trying to do the basics."

Kirsch was organizing everyone else, creating an impromptu emergency center, calling 911, getting furniture out of the way for the arrival of paramedics and trying to reach NESC Director Ralph Roe by Instant Messenger to find the number of Roberts' wife, Ellen.

Stewart remembered an e-mail from his father-in-law a week earlier advising that the old "five compressions" method of CPR had been superseded by a recommended "30 compressions."

Wagner asked Stewart whether mouth-to-mouth was required, and finally Stewart said OK. "It's better to do it than not to do it," Wagner said. "I think I remember his color getting better."

Said Stewart: "Two to three minutes after we started to work on him, it looked like he was trying to come around. It kind of gave us impetus to keep going. It was, 'Wow, he's trying. We've got to keep going.'

"I had been taught that you had to press hard, almost to break his ribs, but I didn't want to break his ribs. That was why our communication was so important. As long as I got feedback from Chip that we were giving enough blood to him, I could keep going the way we were."

Within 7-10 minutes, Emergency Medical Treatment personnel came in to take over.

First, they told Stewart to continue chest compression. "But they told him to do it faster and harder," McCann said. "The first thing they said was 'Are you tired? Can you keep going?' "

Then the paramedics used a defibrillator to shock Roberts' heart.

"By the way, that wasn't much fun," said Roberts, laughing on Wednesday.

But one shock brought him back.

"Then Paul started talking," Stewart said. "He said 'Why am I on the floor? What happened?' "

Stewart filled him in on the ambulance ride to a local hospital, where a pacemaker was installed. The verdict was that Roberts had not had a heart attack, but that his electrical system had shut down. Also that without the CPR by his co-workers, Roberts probably would have died.

"Let me give you an idea of how important what these guys did was," Roberts said. "When I was in the hospital, I looked up some statistics on the Internet. When you go into sudden cardiac arrest and you have somebody in the room who sees you go down, the percentages are about 4-7 percent that you survive.

"About 30 percent of that 4-7 percent have almost no mental degradation. I think I'm in that 30 percent."

He laughed with everyone around him.

Lesa Roe, Langley's center director, and her Goddard and Johnson counterparts, Rob Strain and Mike Coats, echoed Garver's sentiments.

For Roberts, though, it was all personal.

"Guys, thanks for giving me back my family," he said.

Sitting at a table nearby, wife Ellen nodded her thanks, on behalf of their daughters, Katherine, Carolyn and Elizabeth.

And all of the men who received awards made early New Year's resolutions.

"CPR training is on my list," Kirsch said.

Roberts' list, too.

His unique Terrible Towel wave in zero gravity became an internet sensation and inspired Steelers fans around the world. This November, Fincke attended his first Steelers game when his special team took on the Cincinatti Bengals at Heinz Field on Sunday, Nov. 15. The Hometown Heroes weekend peaked as the Steelers honored Fincke during their second largest crowd in the stadium’s history.

Prior to the game, Fincke met fans to sign autographs and take photos. During the pregame activities, Fincke presented the famous Terrible Towel that was flown in space to Steelers President Art Rooney II. Fans responded with a standing ovation when the video footage from space with the towel was shown on the stadium scoreboard. Rooney then surprised Fincke by presenting NASA with a #18 Steelers jersey in honor of his Expedition.

His visit actually began on Friday, Nov. 13, with a series of media interviews and educational appearances. Fincke, an Emsworth, PA native, visited his alma mater, Sewickely Academy, where he attended on scholarship while growing up. He met with more than 400 students, shared his experiences on Expedition 18 and encouraged the students to pursue their dreams.

Later that afternoon, Fincke spoke with more than a thousand students in the Avonworth School District. The students and faculty were thrilled to have Fincke share his inspirational story and information about space exploration.

“It’s great for the students to hear someone with real-life experience, especially from the perspective of living and working in space,” said Darlene Tartaglione, Principal of Avonworth Elementary. “It’s very nice to see that what the kids are learning really can be applied to life outside of school.”

Hometown Heroes is an opportunity for astronauts to reach out to their communities. Fincke also spent Saturday morning with patients at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. When he arrived, the staff and children had been working on space activities. Fincke quickly introduced himself and presented the hospital with a photo of Pittsburgh that he took from the space station. It was not too long before he joined the children in their activities, helping with arts and crafts and signing autographs.

Fincke continued his community activities with a presentation at the Carnegie Science Center on Saturday afternoon. He shared his experiences on the space station and took questions from the audience of more than 300 people, some of whom had interacted with him during Expedition 18. David Trombetta, a high school student from the Pittsburgh area was part of a group of students who spoke with Fincke over ham radio during the mission.

“They are trying to advance science to better understand life away from Earth,” Trombetta said, excited to meet an astronaut in person for the first time. When asked if he aspired to travel in space, he said, “No, but I would like to be an engineer.”

Fincke has spent a full year in space throughout the course of his career as a NASA astronaut. As a mission specialist on the upcoming STS-134 space shuttle flight, Fincke will add 12 days to his cumulative time in space. The mission will mark the final flight of the space shuttle Endeavour. It is scheduled to be the second to last flight of the Space Shuttle Program.

The burst occurred January 2, 2009. NASA’s Swift satellite observed its position and immediately notified telescopes all over the world via the Internet. When it received the trigger from Swift, the robotic Liverpool Telescope on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands automatically swung to observe the burst. Its special camera employs a spinning disk of Polaroid -- similar to the material used in sunglasses.

"By observing how the brightness of the GRB varied as we spun the Polaroid, we could measure the magnetic field in the burst," explained Iain Steele, Director of the Liverpool Telescope.

"This important result gives us new insight into the physics of these remarkable objects and is a testament to the close collaboration between observers, theoreticians and technologists in the Liverpool and NASA Swift teams," added LMJU team leader Carole Mundell. "It's incredible to think that the GRB discovery and our measurement process – from first detection and notification by NASA's Swift satellite to the polarization measurement using RINGO on the Liverpool Telescope – took place completely automatically within less than three minutes and with no human intervention!"

"This breakthrough observation gives us the first measurement of magnetic fields in the afterglow of a GRB," said Swift lead scientist Neil Gehrels, Swift lead scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Gamma Ray Bursts form when the core of a massive star collapses or when two neutron stars merge together. The resulting explosions are the brightest events in the universe and vastly outshine entire galaxies containing hundreds of billions of stars. NASA’s Swift satellite sees about 100 of these events each year, triggering ground-based follow-up by observations across the globe.

Polarization is one of the least-observed properties in astronomy. This finding opens the door to understanding the role of magnetic fields in some of the most powerful events in the universe.

"These very interesting observations raise the possibility that gamma-ray bursts are not fireballs as usually presumed but are powered and collimated by an organized electromagnetic field," said Roger Blandford, Director of the Kavli Institute of Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University, California, commenting on the result's importance. "It will be very interesting to see if there are similarities in observations of other kinds of cosmic jets."

Funding for the operation of the Liverpool Telescope and GRB research at Liverpool JMU is provided by the U.K. Science and Technology Facilities Council. Swift is managed by NASA Goddard. It was built and is being operated in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and General Dynamics of Gilbert, Ariz., in the United States. International collaborators include the University of Leicester and Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory in the United Kingdom, Brera Observatory and the Italian Space Agency in Italy, and additional partners in Germany and Japan.

"We're looking right down the barrel of a particle jet powered by the galaxy's supermassive black hole," said Gino Tosti at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Perugia, Italy. "Some change within that jet -- we don't know what -- is likely responsible for these flares."

Blazars, like many active galaxies, emit oppositely directed jets of particles traveling near the speed of light when matter falls toward their central supermassive black holes. What makes a blazar so bright in gamma rays is its orientation: One of the jets happens to be aimed straight at us.

Most of the time, the brightest persistent source in the gamma-ray sky is the Vela pulsar, which at a distance of about 1,000 light-years lies practically next door.

"3C 454.3 is millions of times farther away, yet the current flare makes it twice as bright as Vela," said Lise Escande at the Center for Nuclear Studies in Gradignan, near Bordeaux, France. "That represents an incredible energy release, and one the source can't sustain for very long."

According to Massimo Villata at Italy's Torino Observatory, 3C 454.3 also is flaring at radio and visible wavelengths, if less dramatically. "In red light, the blazar brightened by more than two and a half times to magnitude 13.7, and it is also very bright at high radio frequencies."

The Fermi team is alerting astronomers to monitor the event over as broad a range of wavelengths as possible. "That's our best bet for understanding what's going on inside that jet," Tosti said.

Related Link:

› NASA's Fermi Mission, Namibia's HESS Telescopes Explore a Blazar

› Play movie

A day can bring in a request to find a better way to dry a shuttle's heat shield tile, a need to improve an existing hydrogen fire detector or a chance to predict the outcome if a solid rocket booster accidentally ignited inside the Vehicle Assembly Building.

"I come into work every day expecting to think and hoping to solve something," Youngquist said. "Anytime where you can come to work and it's a different duty. I don't see how you could have a better job than that."

His enthusiasm and the solutions developed by him and the lab earned the 20-year Kennedy veteran the center's first Engineer/Scientist of the Year award.

It's a far different career outcome than Youngquist expected.

Youngquist earned two bachelor's degrees in math and physics and then turned to applied physics for his master's degree. He followed that with a doctorate in applied physics from Stanford University in California.

"I was planning on being a professor," the physicist said. "I had never considered aerospace."

Working at University College London in England was wearing Youngquist out, though, and he came back to the United States.

Youngquist had lived in Florida since he was seven, having moved down from New York, so the Space Coast was a natural home base for him. He took a post with a contractor in 1988, then moved to a NASA position in 1999.

With a specialty in fiber optics just as the field was burgeoning, Youngquist earned nine patents. His work at Kennedy would earn nine more.

Throughout the 1990s, almost all the work the lab did was focused on the Space Shuttle Program. It often dealt with ground support equipment, launch needs and inventions to help analyze shuttle components after a mission.

The current decade has seen a shift as the engineers turn their attention to the needs of the Constellation Program. They also work with the Launch Services Program on the expendable rockets that loft scientific and observation spacecraft for the agency. These days, shuttle program work accounts for 40 percent of the lab's manifest.

Still, Youngquist said he doesn't know what to expect. Depending on the problem, a solution can be as simple as suggesting a new way to do something, or it might require an invention.

"There have been so many unique days out here," he said. "I spent a Sunday afternoon at the top of the fixed service structure with acoustic equipment measuring the pressure waves as they set cannons off to scare away birds."

With seven other NASA engineers in the lab, Youngquist doesn't have to research and solve each problem himself.

"It's a very diverse lab and we get involved with a large number of activities," he said.

The award also is a recognition of Youngquist's work with students and engineers working toward higher degrees.

When engineering and math students visit the lab, Youngquist said that "in almost every case these students unanimously agree that this is where they would like to work."

"I'd like to think the research we're doing is going to end up in airframes and will potentially save lives," said Karen Jackson, an aerospace engineer who oversaw the test at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, more than 200 people are injured in helicopter accidents in the United States each year, in part because helicopters fly in riskier conditions than most other aircraft. They fly close to the ground, not far from power lines and other obstacles, and often are used for emergencies, including search and rescue and medical evacuations.

For the test at Langley, researchers used an MD-500 helicopter donated by the U.S. Army. The rotorcraft was equipped with instruments that collected 160 channels of data. One of the four crash test dummies was a special torso model equipped with simulated internal organs. It came from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

Kellas initially came up with the idea as a way to cushion the next generation of astronaut-carrying space capsules, but soon realized it had many other possible applications. So the concept became part of a helicopter drop test for the Subsonic Rotary Wing Project of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate in Washington.

Jackson said researchers tested the deployable energy absorber under realistic conditions. "We crash-tested the helicopter by suspending it about 35 feet (10.7 m) into the air using cables. Then, as it swung to the ground, we used pyrotechnics to remove the cables just before the helicopter hit so that it reacted like it would in a real accident," she explained.

The test conditions imitated what would be a relatively severe helicopter crash. The flight path angle was about 33 degrees and the combined forward and vertical speeds were about 48 feet per second or 33 miles per hour (14.6 meters per second, 53.1 kph).

"We got data to validate our integrated computer models that predict how all parts of the helicopter and the occupants react in a crash. Plus the torso model test dummy will help us assess internal injuries to occupants during a helicopter crash."

Engineers say the MD-500 survived relatively intact as a result of the honeycomb cushion. They plan to recycle the helicopter and drop it again next year, but without the deployable energy absorber attached, in order to compare the results.

This color mosaic was assembled from 18 images taken by Galileo's imaging system through a green filter. On the upperleft is the dark, lava-filled Mare Imbrium, Mare Serenitatis (middle left), Mare Tranquillitatis (lower left), and Mare Crisium, the dark circular feature toward the bottom of the mosaic. Also visible in this view are the dark lava plains of the Marginis and Smythii Basins at the lower right. The Humboldtianum Basin, a 400-mile impact structure partly filled with dark volcanic deposits, is seen at the center of the image.

The image was taken in the same region as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), which was taken in 2004 and is the deepest visible-light image of the universe. Hubble's newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) collects light from near-infrared wavelengths and therefore looks even deeper into the universe, because the light from very distant galaxies is stretched out of the ultraviolet and visible regions of the spectrum into near-infrared wavelengths by the expansion of the universe.

This image was taken by the HUDF09 team, that was awarded the time for the observation and made it available for research by astronomers worldwide. In just three months, 12 scientific papers have already been submitted on these new data.

The photo was taken with the new WFC3/IR camera on Hubble in late August 2009 during a total of four days of pointing for 173,000 seconds of total exposure time. Infrared light is invisible and therefore does not have colors that can be perceived by the human eye. The colors in the image are assigned comparatively short, medium, and long, near-IR wavelengths (blue, 1.05 microns; green, 1.25 microns; red, 1.6 microns). The representation is "natural" in that blue objects look blue and red objects look red. The faintest objects are about one billionth as bright as can be seen with the naked eye.

These Hubble observations are trailblazing a path for Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which will look even farther into the universe than Hubble, at infrared wavelengths. The JWST is planned to be launched in 2014.

The HUDF09 team members are Garth Illingworth (University of California Observatories/Lick Observatory and the University of California, Santa Cruz), Rychard Bouwens (University of California Observatories/Lick Observatory and Leiden University), Pascal Oesch and Marcella Carollo (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETH)), Marijn Franx (Leiden University), Ivo Labbe (Carnegie Institute of Washington), Daniel Magee (University of California, Santa Cruz), Massimo Stiavelli (Space Telescope Science Institute), Michele Trenti (University of Colorado, Boulder), and Pieter van Dokkum (Yale University).

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute conducts Hubble science operations. The institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, and is an International Year of Astronomy 2009 program partner.

Images and more information are available at:

› HubbleSite
› Space Telescope Science Institute
› NASA Hubble page
› Series of STSI images