Category Archives: Hubble Telescope

NORTHAMPTON When Smith College astronomy professor James Lowenthal got images back from the Hubble Space Telescope this year, his initial response was simple: Wow!

What he was looking at were the brightest infrared galaxies in the universe close-up views of rare, ultrabright collections of stars from the early universe that are furiously producing even more stars. Those views, Lowenthal said speaking at his office on Tuesday, may someday help answer a fundamental question about the history of the cosmos: how did galaxies form and evolve?

The images Lowenthal was observing made use of a well-known effect called gravitational lensing. Essentially, the light from those 22 distant galaxies passes through the gravitational field of a closer massive object, which acts as a kind of cosmic magnifying glass for researchers on Earth.

That foregrounded, natural lens allows astronomers to see otherwise impossible-to-see pictures of the distant universe. Light traveling from those galaxies takes billions of years to reach Earth, so researchers are quite literally looking into the past at galaxies from as long as 12 billion years ago about 90 percent of the way back to the Big Bang, according to Lowenthal.

Lowenthal presented those images at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas, last month.

The reaction has been in our scientific community, This is so, so cool, Lowenthal said of the response from his colleagues.

But before Lowenthal could take that peek into the past with his fellow researchers including Min Yun, Kevin Harrington, Patrick Kamieneski and Daniel Wang of the University of Massachusetts Amherst they had to write a scientifically rigorous proposal laying out their case for getting highly sought-after time on the Hubble telescope.

We convinced them it would be really cool, Lowenthal said of the proposal. And wow! It was really cool.

Lowenthal said Yun and others cleverly discovered the galaxies by using publicly available data from several telescopes, and used the Large Millimeter Telescope a joint project between UMass and Mexicos National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics to confirm their distances from Earth.

It was thanks to that work narrowing down a list of distant galaxies that the team knew where to look when they got time on the Hubble telescope.

The distant galaxies in the Hubble images are producing 5,000 to 10,000 times more stars than the Milky Way, but are using the same amount of gas contained in the Milky Way. That fact leaves astronomers to puzzle over what exactly is fueling that star birth.

Possible explanations for the rapid creation of stars could be the collision of massive galaxies, a flood of gas or something entirely different. At issue is the very nature of galaxy formation and evolution.

Those are lingering questions that Lowenthal hopes to answer, but first the images from the Hubble telescope must be decoded.

While gravitational lensing makes those distant galaxies more visible in high detail, it also bends their light, leaving warped images with streaks, circles and arcs that can leave researchers unclear about what exactly theyre looking at. The task now is to unscramble those pictures.

To explain the warping of the images, Lowenthal used the analogy of looking at candlelight through a wine glass. The light will appear in different spots, or even stretch across the bottom of the glass in a circle, depending on how the glass is held.

Because the images theyve received are warped, researchers must now work backwards to reconstruct what those galaxies actually looked like before passing through the lens. Knowing the distance of those galaxies, Lowenthal and others must figure out other variables like the gravitational pull of the lens to model what the original image looked like, or to even figure out what the background and foreground are.

From Hubble, we got only monochromatic, black and white images. Its only one wavelength, Lowenthal said, noting that hes hoping to get images from Hubble in the future that will show colors like red and blue. If we did have that information, it would tremendously, instantly help us separate foreground from background, because the foreground and background are almost always different colors.

Lowenthal and his colleagues failed to get approval to use the Hubble telescope during the latest cycle of proposals, but he said he hopes theyll soon have access again, and they hope to gain further insight into the nature of those early galaxies.

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A 'wow' moment for the astronomy community - The Recorder

The illustrious Hubble Space Telescope will eventually re-enter Earths atmosphere and be destroyed or so I understand. Could it be returned to Earth safely and put in a museum? If so, what would be the cheapest way to do it?

(Continued)

Our apologies to Sam Palasciano whose earlier submission to this question on 3 June contained an error introduced by us Ed

Hubbles primary mirror weighs roughly 1800 pounds or 800 kilograms, not 450 as the article stated. This could be significant if someone wanted to seriously pursue this question.

However, I would much rather someone came up with a way of extending the life of the Hubble telescope in orbit. The replacement Webb Telescope, as I understand it, operates at different wavelengths. Hubble was designed to have a more useful operating window, including both ultraviolet and infrared, an advantage that will be lost when it is closed down.

Sam Palasciano, Oceanside, California, US

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Salvaging Hubble - New Scientist

NORTHAMPTON When Smith College astronomy professor James Lowenthal got images back from the Hubble Space Telescope this year, his initial response was simple: Wow!

What he was looking at were the brightest infrared galaxies in the universe close-up views of rare, ultrabright collections of stars from the early universe that are furiously producing even more stars. Those views, Lowenthal told the Gazette at his office on Tuesday, may someday help answer a fundamental question about the history of the cosmos: how did galaxies form and evolve?

The images Lowenthal was observing made use of a well-known effect called gravitational lensing. Essentially, the light from those 22 distant galaxies passes through the gravitational field of a closer massive object, which acts as a kind of cosmic magnifying glass for researchers on Earth.

That foregrounded, natural lens allows astronomers to see otherwise impossible-to-see pictures of the distant universe. Light traveling from those galaxies takes billions of years to reach Earth, so researchers are quite literally looking into the past at galaxies from as long as 12 billion years ago about 90 percent of the way back to the Big Bang, according to Lowenthal.

Lowenthal presented those images at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas, last month.

The reaction has been in our scientific community, This is so, so cool, Lowenthal said of the response from his colleagues.

But before Lowenthal could take that peek into the past with his fellow researchers including Min Yun, Kevin Harrington, Patrick Kamieneski and Daniel Wang of the University of Massachusetts Amherst they had to write a scientifically rigorous proposal laying out their case for getting highly sought- after time on the Hubble telescope.

We convinced them it would be really cool, Lowenthal said of the proposal. And wow! It was really cool.

Lowenthal said Yun and others cleverly discovered the galaxies by using publicly available data from several telescopes, and used the Large Millimeter Telescope a joint project between UMass and Mexicos National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics to confirm their distances from Earth.

It was thanks to that work narrowing down a list of distant galaxies that the team knew where to look when they got time on the Hubble telescope.

The distant galaxies in the Hubble images are producing 5,000 to 10,000 times more stars than the Milky Way, but are using the same amount of gas contained in the Milky Way. That fact leaves astronomers to puzzle over what exactly is fueling that star birth.

Possible explanations for the rapid creation of stars could be the collision of massive galaxies, a flood of gas or something entirely different. At issue is the very nature of galaxy formation and evolution.

Those are lingering questions that Lowenthal hopes to answer, but first the images from the Hubble telescope must be decoded.

While gravitational lensing makes those distant galaxies more visible in high detail, it also bends their light, leaving warped images with streaks, circles and arcs that can leave researchers unclear about what exactly theyre looking at. The task now is to unscramble those pictures.

To explain the warping of the images, Lowenthal used the analogy of looking at candlelight through a wine glass. The light will appear in different spots, or even stretch across the bottom of the glass in a circle, depending on how the glass is held.

Because the images theyve received are warped, researchers must now work backwards to reconstruct what those galaxies actually looked like before passing through the lens. Knowing the distance of those galaxies, Lowenthal and others must figure out other variables like the gravitational pull of the lens to model what the original image looked like, or to even figure out what the background and foreground are.

From Hubble, we got only monochromatic, black and white images. Its only one wavelength, Lowenthal said, noting that hes hoping to get images from Hubble in the future that will show colors like red and blue. If we did have that information, it would tremendously, instantly help us separate foreground from background, because the foreground and background are almost always different colors.

Lowenthal and his colleagues failed to get approval to use the Hubble telescope during the latest cycle of proposals, but he said he hopes theyll soon have access again, and they hope to gain further insight into the nature of those early galaxies.

While he waits for more data, however, the images Lowenthal already has have nevertheless changed his perception of the cosmos in at least some way. As a scientist who normally studies distant galaxies without much emphasis on gravitational lensing, the new images have made him rethink the galaxies he has been looking at for so many years.

I have not been thinking, Most of those galaxies are probably gravitationally lensed, at least a little bit, Lowenthal said. And now Im thinking, Everything is lensed!

Its definitely startling to have a big shift like that, he said, though the smile on his face and wonder in his eyes seemed to indicate he was far more excited and curious for the work ahead than startled.

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Smith astronomer presents rare images of stars at national conference - GazetteNET

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Its easy to feel small and insignificant in the grandiose scope of the universe, because we are. At the same time, as Carl Sagan once reminded us, were made of the same star stuff as the cosmos. All too often, we forget how random, ridiculous, and resplendent it is to part of the stellar sorority of the universe. Thats why art, specifically movies like Eliza McNitts Fistful of Stars, is importantit reacquaints us with humanitys small and stupid and somehow very special place in the cosmos.

Fistful of Stars is a five minute-long virtual reality experience that takes the viewer on a tour through the vast star-forming region known as the Orion Nebula. Its hauntingly beautiful images, accompanied by The Hubble Cantatawhich includes a 30 piece ensemble, a 100 person choir, and two singers from the Metropolitan Operagives the film a 2001 feel without the murderous robots.

Its a combination of science and magical realism, director Eliza McNitt told Gizmodo. We wanted to give users the feeling as if they were a star floating on stellar winds through the Orion Nebula. That could take billions of years but we wanted to give you the experience of that spectacular journey through five minutes.

Humans have never ventured into the Orion Nebula, because its roughly 1,500 lightyears away. Peering into its cloudy heart, Hubble has found some of the most beautiful chaos of star birth ever captured. As its name suggests, Fistful of Stars masterfully captures the beauty within our otherwise bellicose universe. I still cant decide whether the whole thing is a cause or cure for an existential crisis.

The Orion Nebula is a place thousands of lightyears away where no human has ever been, McNitt said. Fistful of stars offers humans an experience...where you get to become the eyes of the human telescope.

Though the film originally premiered back in March at SXSW, its finally available on Vices Samsung VR channel. If you dont have VR gear, you can check still check it out without a headset right here, in 360 video.

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This Real World 'Space Opera' Lets You Become the Hubble Telescope - Gizmodo

NASAs Hubble Telescope has captured a unique time-lapse movie of Martian moon Phobos as it orbited around the planet. In the sequence, Phobos emerges from behind the Mars and passes in front of the planet. The moon looks so small that it could easily be mistaken with a star.

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Phobos is the larger of Mars' two moons. It is closer to its host planet than any other moon in the solar system and it takes it just 7 hours and 39 minutes to complete an orbit.

Mars gravitational pull is drawing Phobos closer and closer. Every 100 years, the moon is approaching Mars by about 2 meters or 6.5 feet. As the moon is getting dangerously close to its planet, it could be shredded into pieces and likely form rings Saturn-like around Mars. Scientists predict that this could happen between 30 and 50 million years.

Thought Phobos is the largest moon of Mars, it is still one of smallest natural satellites in our solar system. The moon is 27 by 22 by 18 km in diameter and could easily fit inside Washington, D.C. Beltway.

The origin of Phobos is not yet fully determined. But researchers suspect that it could be caused by collision between Mars and another body.

Phobos may be a pile of rubble that is held together by a thin crust. It may have formed as dust and rocks encircling Mars were drawn together by gravity. Or, it may have experienced a more violent birth, where a large body smashing into Mars flung pieces skyward, and those pieces were brought together by gravity. Perhaps an existing moon was destroyed, reduced to the rubble that would become Phobos. NASA statement said.

The images of Phobos orbiting the Red Planet were taken on May 12, 2016 days before Mars came closest to the Earth in 11 years.

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Hubble Telescope Captures Mars Moon Phobos Orbiting Around The Planet - I4U News

The Hindu

Phobos imaged by Hubble Space telescope The Hindu NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has beamed back images of the tiny Martian moon Phobos in its orbital trek around the red planet. Over the course of 22 minutes, Hubble took 13 separate images, allowing astronomers to create a time-lapse video showing ... This is just really cool a time-lapse animation from the Hubble telescope showing a tiny moon zinging around MarsDiscover Magazine (blog) NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures tiny Martian moon PhobosBusiness Standard Tiny Martian moon Phobos captured by NASA's Hubble telescopeIndia Today CNET -India.com -NASA -Solar System Exploration - NASA all 81 news articles »

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Phobos imaged by Hubble Space telescope - The Hindu

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NASA's Hubble telescope captures tiny Martian moon Phobos Bangladesh News 24 hours ... Hubble took 13 separate exposures, allowing astronomers to create a time-lapse video showing the diminutive moon's orbital path. The Hubble observations were intended to photograph Mars, and the moon's cameo appearance was a bonus, NASA said ... Tiny moon Phobos zips by Mars in fun Hubble time-lapseCNET Phobos photobombs Mars in Hubble viewGeekWire NASA Hubble Telescope clicks stunning pics of Mars' moon Phobos; watch time-lapse video hereNews Nation Sci-News.com -EarthSky -NASA all 34 news articles »

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NASA's Hubble telescope captures tiny Martian moon Phobos - Bangladesh News 24 hours

Pretty cool.

In the realm of space exploration, Americans may have not only separated into bubbles but split into entire parallel universes. Last week, in one universe, Vice President Michael Pence vows to regain Americas lost leadership in space. In the other, NASA demonstrates its continued leadership by announcing that the spacecraft Juno is giving the world its first close-up view of Jupiters iconic red spot. Not that U.S. leadership was the main point of this exercise. The scientists are excited to learn about this wonder of the universe --a swirling storm bigger than our entire planet.

In one universe, the Trump administration is going to fix what ails American space exploration. For nearly 25 years, governments commitment seems to have not matched the spirit of the American people, Pence told an audience at the Kennedy Space Center on July 6. In the other universe, Americans and other interested parties from around the world are so thrilled with the Juno mission that they are downloading the raw data from NASA and turning it into images, which range from realistic visualizations to artistic renderings.

Jupiter's red spot is weirdly persistent, considering that earthly storms come and go in a matter of days. As Caltech planetary scientist Andrew Ingersoll describes it, the spot is like a ball bearing rotating between two opposing jet streams. It has been there since the time people were first able to view the face of our solar systems largest planet with telescopes in the late 1600s, he said. For reasons that arent well understood, the spot has suddenly started shrinking. It was three times the size of Earth when the spacecraft Voyager flew by in the 1970s, but now its only 1.4 times the size of our planet.

Juno skimmed by the storms cloud tops at a tenth the distance of Voyager and other previous spacecraft, and its instruments allowed the first view beneath the surface of those clouds. Ingersoll said it should be able to see whether the spot has deep roots - meaning that the storm might extend downwards more than 100 miles. They may also get clues to another mystery -- why the spot is red.

The craft arrived at Jupiter on July 4, 2016, and it has already started giving scientists a view below the cloud tops. They expected all the action to be at the top, with something more uniform and bland beneath, said principal investigator Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute. Instead, theyve encountered a surprising amount of structure and action beneath the surface -- something different everywhere they peer.

If any other country had launched such a successful mission, politicians would be out of their minds not to mention it in a major speech on space exploration. And this is no isolated success. The team guiding the Cassini spacecraft is giving us a grand finale this summer of an inspiring tour of Saturns rings and moons. The Chandra X-ray Observatory is still showing us views of otherwise invisible gases bursting from supernova explosions or swirling into supermassive black holes. The Kepler satellite has revealed the presence of thousands of planets orbiting other stars, and the Hubble telescope continues to change the way we understand the origin and nature of our universe.

In Pences universe, none if this is apparently worth mentioning. The red spot is pretty, but you cant build a golf course on it. Pences speech suggested that real space exploration requires astronauts. Our nation will return to the moon and put American boots on the face of Mars, he said, painting a strangely militaristic image.

Why I asked a handful of space scientists what they thought of Pences concern about U.S. leadership -- whether wed lost it and whether it would matter if we did. They all said essentially the same thing -- that our leadership is only reinforced by the fact that Europe, China, Japan and India are starting to explore the solar system. While Pence waxed visionary about sending astronauts to places our childrens children can only imagine, Americans have sent people farther into space than any other nation, and now play a leading role in the International Space Station.

Mars has been beckoning for decades, and many administrations before Trumps have made noise about sending people. Scientists havent completely ruled out the possibility that simple life started on Mars and may survive still under the surface. Astronaut-scientists might be able to do the drilling and analysis to finally get an answer. But would it be so bad if the boots of those scientists werent all American?

In terms of sheer distance, we cant compete with our robots. They acquire new superpowers every year, while the American body hasnt changed, except, on average, to get fatter. Besides, people can dream big about robotic missions. I would to see a probe in orbit around Pluto, a submarine exploration of Europas ocean, or sailing the methane seas of Titan, said astronomer Tod Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Arizona.

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Lauer said he understands the desire to walk around on other worlds. In the 1960s, he said, he remembers being 11, staring at a model of the moon, when a teacher asked him if hed like to go there someday. He did want to go to the moon, he said, and back then it seemed a realistic enough goal. None of the really giant dreams from then came true, he said, and I still emotionally miss that alternate future.

But the actual 21st century has not been so bad. Lauer said he was one of the first people to see close-ups of the surface of Pluto by analyzing data from the New Horizons mission and turning it into images. Maybe its good that Trump and his people have shown no interest in these sorts of missions. Otherwise they might start naming things after themselves.

This week, citizen scientists are picking up the raw data from Junos July 10 flyby and creating the first close-ups of the red spot. The first person to see each new part of Junos itinerary doesnt have to be an astronaut. It could be any school kid or science enthusiast from any country. It could be you.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story: Faye Flam at fflam1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tracy Walsh at twalsh67@bloomberg.net

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Don't Worry About US Space Leadership - Bloomberg

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this view of the galaxy cluster SDSS J1110+6459, which lies 6 billion light-years from Earth and contains hundreds of galaxies.

A natural magnifying glass has sharpened images captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, revealing a distant galaxy that contradicts existing theories about early star formation. By pairing Hubble with a massive galaxy cluster, scientists captured images 10 times sharper than the space telescope could snap on its own.

The resulting images reveal star-forming knots of newborn stars only 200 to 300 light-years across, in a galaxy that formed only 2.7 billion years after the Big Bang. Previous theories suggested that star-forming regions in the early universe were much larger at least 3,000 light-years across. [Hubble Space Telescope's Latest Cosmic Views]

"There are star-forming knots as far down in size as we can see," Traci Johnson, a doctoral student in astronomy at the University of Michigan, said in a statement. Johnson is the lead author on two of the three research papers describing Hubble's new results, which were published July 6 in the The Astrophysical Journal and the The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

In this Hubble photograph of a distant galaxy cluster, a spotty blue arc stands out against a background of red galaxies. The arc consists of three separate images of a galaxy in the background called SGAS J111020.0+645950.8, which has been magnified and distorted through a process known as gravitational lensing.

Though Hubble was built to peer into the early universe, even the legendary space telescope can sometimes use a boost. In this case, astronomers paired the instrument with a gravitational lens, a massive structure in space that bends and distorts light to allow glimpses at greater distances.

Gravitational lenses can be any type of object, ranging from a single massive galaxy to an entire cluster. As light from the more distant galaxy passes the massive object, it is bent and distorted into an arc. For the newfound cluster, this magnified the object almost 30 times. Scientists had to develop a special computer code to remove the distortions and reveal the galaxy as it would normally appear.

Gravitational lenses occur when the light from a more distant galaxy or quasar is warped by the gravity of a nearer object in the line of sight from Earth, as shown in this diagram.

Without the boost of the gravitational lens, the disk galaxy would appear smooth and unremarkable through the Hubble telescope, Johnson said. With it, however, scientists could catch an amazing glimpse of the early universe.

"When we saw the reconstructed image, we said, 'Wow, it looks like fireworks are going off everywhere,'" said Jane Rigby, an astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the third paper.

The newly spotted galaxy lies about 11 billion light-years from the sun. Because of the connection between distance and time, that means astronomers can see it as it looked 11 billion years ago, only a few billion years after the Big Bang that kick-started the universe about 13.8 billion years ago.

Whereas Hubble revealed newborn stars, NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will reveal older, redder stars. Scheduled to launch in October 2018, Webb will also be able to peer through the dust around the galaxy.

"With the Webb Telescope, we'll be able to tell you what happened in this galaxy in the past, and what we missed with Hubble because of dust," Rigby said.

Follow Nola Taylor Redd on Twitter @NolaTRedd Facebook or Google+. Follow us at @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

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'Fireworks' Images from Hubble Telescope Capture Stars Forming Just After the Big Bang - Space.com

Scientists have looked back in time, further than they usually can with the instruments available to them, at a faraway galaxy composed of bright clumps of newborn stars. The great distance and the time it takes light to travel that far mean the galaxy appearsto these Earth-bound humans as it was 11 billion years ago, or just 2.7 billion years after the Big Bang.

"When we saw the reconstructed image we said, 'Wow, it looks like fireworks are going off everywhere,'" astronomer Jane Rigby of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement.

Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope, taken advantage of a natural phenomenon and applied new computational methods to capture closer-up and more detailed imagesabout 10 times sharper than they could with the telescope alone. The findings were published in three papers: One in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and two in The Astrophysical Journal.

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The galaxy cluster SDSS J1110+6459 is about 6 billion light-years from Earth and contains hundreds of galaxies. At left, a distinctive blue arc is actually composed of three separate images of a more distant background galaxy called SGAS J111020.0+645950.8. NASA said the background galaxy has been magnified, distorted and multiply imaged by the gravity of the galaxy cluster in a process known as gravitational lensing. NASA, ESA, and T. Johnson (University of Michigan)

Hubble was aimed in the direction of galaxies that would normally appear smooth and unremarkable, according to NASA. But from this angle, the clusters of stars in between Hubble and the galaxy in question have so much mass that they act as a second, natural telescope, magnifying it and making it brighter.

The gravity from all that mass has distorted the image that we see of the background galaxy, like a telescope or a funhouse mirror, Rigby tells Newsweek, explaining that its an effect that Albert Einstein predicted and that has been proven over and over again since. All of the red and orange clusters in the images are the intermediaries that act as a gravitational lens to make the blue-tinged clusters visible. The main target herewhich appears as an arc, like a smile flipped on its sideis magnified by a factor of 28, Rigby says.

However, the double telescope also warps the image. In this case, it stretches out the arc and makes it appear multiple times. A new computational technique developed by Traci Johnson, a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan and lead author on two of the three papers, helped researchers figure out how the galaxy was warped and undo it. Theyve reconstructed what they believe the image would look like without the distortions.

In this Hubble photograph of a distant galaxy cluster, a spotty blue arc stands out against a background of red galaxies. That arc is actually three separate images of the same background galaxy. The background galaxy has been gravitationally lensed, its light magnified and distorted by the intervening galaxy cluster. On the right: How the galaxy would look to Hubble without distortions. NASA, ESA, and T. Johnson (University of Michigan)

The new images provide a view of the faraway stars as they would appear with a telescope nearly 33 feet in diameter; Hubble is 8 feet in diameter, Rigby says. She adds that it helps offer a sneak preview of what universe would look like if we could build a much larger telescope than Hubble.

This artist's illustration portrays what the gravitationally lensed galaxy SDSS J1110+6459 might look like up close. A sea of young, blue stars is streaked with dark dust lanes and studded with bright pink patches that mark sites of star formation. The patches' signature glow comes from ionized hydrogen, like we see in the Orion Nebula in our own galaxy. NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay (STScI)

The James Webb Space Telescope, which has a 21.3-foot diameter and is scheduled to launch in October 2018, will offer views even farther out and through dust that may be obscuring Hubbles view. With Webb, researchers will be able to observe older stars and galaxies as they appeared in the first billion years after the Big Bang, which will help them continue studying how star formation evolved over time.

Hubble and Webb, Rigby says, see so far out in the universe that they're acting like time machines.

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New Star Images Captured by Hubble Telescope With Help From Gravity 'Look Like Fireworks' - Newsweek