Hubble

I have always been impressed with the photos that are downloaded from the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA scientists showed off spectacular new pictures from the newly renovated Hubble Space Telescope. Wednesday, a stunning gallery of remote galaxies, a stellar nursery, an enormous globular cluster packed with countless pinpoint stars, and a dying sun blowing off its outer atmosphere in butterfly-like wings of debris.

The pictures clearly show the fabled telescope is back in action, ready to resume its role as one of the most productive observatories on or off the planet, thanks to a dramatic five-spacewalk shuttle repair mission last May. Let me share some strikig photos complements of MNBC.


A beautiful view of a star in its death throes is featured in a gallery of images sent back by the Hubble Space Telescope after its final shuttle servicing mission in May 2009. The planetary nebula NGC 6302, better known as the Butterfly Nebula or the Bug Nebula, is about 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. The features that look like dainty butterfly wings are actually roiling cauldrons of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit, blasted away from a dying star bigger than the sun. This picture was taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3.




The supernova remnant N132D resides in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small companion galaxy of the Milky Way about 170,000 light-years away. A visible-light image of N132D, taken in August with Hubble's new Wide Field Camera 3, reveals a crescent-shaped cloud of pink emission from hydrogen gas and soft purple wisps of glowing oxygen. Scientists probed these wisps with Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and discovered pristine gas ejected by the supernova that had not yet mixed with surrounding gas.

The barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217, which lies 6 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, shines bright in the first image of a celestial object taken with Hubble's newly repaired Advanced Camera for Surveys. The camera was restored to operation in May during the shuttle Atlantis' final Hubble servicing mission. This image was assembled from data acquired on June 13 and July 8 during testing and calibration of the camera.

A dark smudge serves as the telltale sign of a cosmic collision in this picture of Jupiter, taken on July 23 by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. Scientists believe the smudge was caused by debris from a comet or asteroid that plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere and disintegrated.

Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 took this picture of a "pillar of creation" in the Carina Nebula, about 7,500 light-years away in the constellation Carina. Clouds of gas and dust conceal the cradles of newborn stars.

Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 captured this panoramic view of a colorful assortment of 100,000 stars residing in the crowded core of the globular cluster Omega Centauri. The full cluster, which lies about 16,000 light-years from Earth, boasts nearly 10 million stars. The stars in Omega Centauri are between 10 billion and 12 billion years old.