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Introduction
If you missed the July Fourth fireworks, you still have a
chance to see a fireworks display -- one that comes from
deep in space. The Hubble Space Telescope captured these
pictures of stars in the throes of death. Looking down a
tunnel of gas from a star dying thousands of years ago,
the telescope delivered the best view yet of M57, the Ring
Nebula in the constellation Lyra. |
Keck
galaxy
Astrophysicists said February 15 they have detected a tiny
galaxy that is the farthest known object from Earth. The
researchers used the Hubble telescope in space and the
Keck Observatory's telescopes in Hawaii to make their
findings. They also were aided by the natural
magnification provided by galaxy cluster Abell 2218, which
acts as a powerful lens magnifying galaxies beyond it. |
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Black
Eye galaxy
Messier 64 (M64) is also known as the "Black
Eye" or "Evil Eye" galaxy because of a dark
band of dust that stands out vividly in front of its
bright nucleus. |
Supernova
Remnant/Celestial Fireworks
The streaks in this image are what's left of a star 15
times more massive than our sun. They could eventually be
the beginning of new star formations. |
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Little
Ghost
Amateur astronomers call this dying star Little Ghost
Nebula. It is 2,000-5,000 light years away and is about
the size of our sun. In its last gasps, this star will
expand and become what's called a red giant. |
NEBULA
MZ3/Ant Nebula
This dying star looks something like an ant, giving us
another idea of what our sun might look like in billions
of years, when it runs out of gas. |
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Crab
Nebula
This star burned out -- becoming a supernova -- as
astronomers in China watched almost a thousand years ago.
An explosion in space and another fireworks display marked
the beginning of the end of another star. |
Egg
Nebula
The Egg Nebula gives us a look at the dust shells around
an aging star -- which are normally invisible and resemble
a rippling pool highlighted by underwater lights. |
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Planetary
Nebula
It glows in the constellation Aquila and looks something
like a giant eye. This unusual planetary nebula, NGC 6751,
was formed thousands of years ago when a cloud of gas
spewed from a fiery star in its core. |
Dying
star
A November 2003 image of Supernova 1987A, a dying star in
a nearby galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud, shows a
gaseous "ring of fire" around the star getting
brighter, while the central star grows dimmer. Hubble
first snapped a photo of the event, which actually
happened 160,000 years ago, in 1987. |
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Three
galaxies just below center are enmeshed in battle, their
shapes distorted by the brutal encounter. Astronomers say
the smallest, reddest galaxies may be among the most
distant known, existing when the cosmos was 800 million
years old.
Image courtesy: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the
HUDF Team |
Near
the center of this image an edge-on spiral galaxy fends
off a weirdly shaped blue galaxy.
Image courtesy: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the
HUDF Team |
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Not
all the galaxies are engaged in galactic mayhem. A spiral
galaxy, seen toward the upper left of this image, is one
of the nearest galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.
This galaxy existed about 1 billion years ago, when the
cosmos was 13 billion years old, astronomers say.
Image courtesy: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the
HUDF Team |
The
image required 800 exposures taken over the course of 400
Hubble orbits around Earth.
Image courtesy: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the
HUDF Team |
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These
odd-shaped galaxies chronicle a period when the universe
was more chaotic. Order and structure were just beginning
to emerge.
Image courtesy: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the
HUDF Team |
This
image shows a section of the cosmos that is littered with
close encounters between galaxies that have shredded each
other.
Image courtesy: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the
HUDF Team |
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| This
image resembling Vincent van Gogh's "Starry
Night" is Hubble's latest view of an expanding halo
of light around a distant star. |
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