Announcements 2011

15 December 2011: In this episode of the Hubblecast, we take a tour of the compact star-forming region Sh 2-106. Its hourglass shape is caused by the final, violent phases of a star’s formation in the middle of the gaseous nebula. This episode explains some of the science behind Hubble’s observations and brings them to life with detailed 3D computer visualisations. Credit ESA/HubbleVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli Usher and Bárbara FerreiraNarration: Joe Liske (Dr J)Images: NASA, ESAAnimations: Greg Bacon (STScI), Martin Kornmesser (ESA/Hubble)Music: Zero ProjectDirected by: Oli UsherExecutive Producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

6 December 2011: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has passed another milestone in its almost 21 years of observations: the publication of the 10 000th refereed scientific paper based on Hubble data. Alvaro Gimenez, Director of Science and Robotic Exploration for the European Space Agency said: “Reaching the milestone of the 10 000th scientific paper reminds us that Hubble is one of the most successful scientific endeavours in history. European scientists have played a big part in this, and have been been intimately involved with Hubble since before the telescope’s launch. Thanks to ESA’s partnership with NASA, Europe’s astronomers have made major contributions to our understanding of the Universe.” European scientists are guaranteed at least 15% of the observing time on Hubble under the terms of ESA’s participation in this international project. Over the years, scientists in over 35 countries have engaged in Hubble research. The United States are responsible for the most …

22 November 2011: From the Distant Past, a laser art installation by German conceptual artist Tim Otto Roth, is now on public display in New York City, USA. Two green scanning lasers project spectra from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope onto the sphere of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. The spectra look like representations of brainwaves or heartbeats on a medical monitor, or the latest stock exchange data as they scroll around the planetarium’s dome. But in fact, they chart the colours and chemical composition of distant galaxies and quasars observed by Hubble. Some of these observations are of galaxies so distant that their light has taken many billions of years to reach us. “So the green laser waves represent some of the oldest colours in the Universe,” Roth explains. From the Distant Past, which was previously exhibited in Venice, Italy and Baltimore, USA, was created by Tim …

2 November 2011: The Hubblecast has been highly commended in the 2011 MEDEA awards. An international panel of educational and media experts judged that the Hubblecast was among the best entries in this European competition that recognises innovation and good practice in the use of media in education. There were 115 entries from 28 countries. Nine finalists were chosen, with a further 13 — including the Hubblecast — highly commended by the jury. The Hubblecast’s Dr J (aka Dr Joe Liske) is no stranger to the MEDEA awards. In 2009, Eyes on the Skies, an hour-long documentary presented by Dr J won the Special Jury Award at the MEDEA Awards. Eyes on the Skies celebrates the 400th anniversary of the invention of the telescope and the International Year of Astronomy. The MEDEA Awards are supported by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission through the MEDEA2020 project.

25 October 2011: In episode 49 of the Hubblecast, Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) asked viewers to send in their questions about astronomy and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. In episode 50, Dr J picks his favourite few questions from the hundreds that were sent in. Credits ESA/HubbleVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli UsherPresented by: Joe Liske (Dr J)Images: NASA, ESAMusic: movetwo and zero-projectDirected by: Oli UsherCinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix-media-gmbh.de)Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

29 September 2011: A fleet of spacecraft including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has shown unprecedented details in the environs of a supermassive black hole. Observations reveal huge bullets of gas being driven away from the gravitational monster and a corona of very hot gas hovering above the disc of matter that is falling into the black hole.A team led by Jelle Kaastra of SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research made use of data from ESA’s XMM-Newton and Integral spacecraft (which study X-rays and gamma rays, respectively), the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (for ultraviolet observations with the COS instrument), NASA’s Chandra (X-ray) and Swift (gamma and X-ray) satellites, and the ground-based telescopes WHT and PAIRITEL. The black hole that the team chose to study lies at the heart of the galaxy Markarian 509, 500 million light-years away. This black hole is colossal, containing 300 million times the mass of the Sun, and is …

23 September 2011: A public art installation featuring Hubble observations of distant galaxies, quasars and stars is going to the USA. From the Distant Past features a laser projecting spectra from distant celestial objects onto the facades of buildings. While the green lines might appear abstract at first, they represent light, split into its constituent colours, that has travelled across space for billions of years from some of the most distant galaxies ever observed. The idea for the installation was generated by German concept artist Tim Otto Roth, in collaboration with astronomer Bob Fosbury, the former head of the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility. Following the amazing success of the first public exhibition of the installation in Venice, in 2010 (ann1011), the Space Telescope Science Institute — the organisation that operates Hubble — has invited Tim to bring his exhibit to the US. Tim Otto Roth says: “I’ve learned that it’s spectra that …

16 September 2011: Using the slitless grism on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 to probe the distant universe, astronomers have found supermassive black holes growing in surprisingly small galaxies. The findings suggest that central black holes formed at an early stage in galaxy evolution. This study is part of the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) and will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.Read the full story from the University of California Santa Cruz here. More Information This research was presented in a paper to appear in the Astrophysical Journal.The team is composed of Jonathan Trump, Dale Kocevski, Elizabeth McGrath, David Koo, Sandra Faber, Mark Mozena, and Hassen Yesuf (University of California, Santa Cruz); Benjamin Weiner and Stephanie Juneau (Steward Observatory); Claudia Scarlata (University of Minnesota); Eric Bell (University of Michigan); Elise Laird and Cyprian Rangel (Imperial College of London); Renbin Yan (New York University); Hakim Atek …

31 August 2011: In this episode of the Hubblecast, Joe Liske (aka Dr J) looks at newborn stars firing out jets of matter. These jets may cast new light on how the Sun formed 4.5 billion years ago.An international team of scientists led by astronomer Patrick Hartigan of Rice University in Houston, USA, has collected enough high-resolution Hubble images over a 14-year period to stitch together time-lapse movies of these jets. Credit ESA/Hubble & NASA/STScIVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli Usher and Donna Weaver (STScI)Narration: Joe Liske (Dr J)Images: NASA, ESA and P. Hartigan (Rice University)Footage: STScI, Rice UniversityAnimations: Greg Bacon (STScI), Patrick Hartigan (Rice University), Martin Kornmesser (ESA/Hubble)Interviews: Mary Estacion (STScI) and Jade Boyd (Rice University)Music: movetwo and John Dyson (from the album Darklight)Directed by: Oli UsherExecutive Producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

30 August 2011: Do you have a burning astronomy question? Now’s the time to ask. To celebrate the 50th episode of ESA’s Hubblecast series, our host, Dr Joe Liske, aka Dr J, will be answering your astronomy questions. Maybe you want to know more about black holes, supernovae, or dark matter? Or perhaps you would like to know where to spot Hubble in the sky?Whatever your question, let us know. Post your question, either as a video or in writing, to our Facebook page at facebook.com/hubbleesa, tweet us @hubble_space or email Dr J at drj@spacetelescope.org. For Facebook, post a question on our wall, or post a link to your question on any video-sharing site. While you’re here, why not like our page too?For Twitter, address your question to our account by directing your question, or a link to your video, to @hubble_space. While you’re here, follow our account to keep up to date …

21 July 2011: In this episode of the Hubblecast, Joe Liske — aka Dr J — takes us on a tour of the outer reaches of the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31), the closest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way. Hubble’s vision is so sharp that it resolves the grey blob that’s visible to the naked eye into the countless individual stars that make it up, letting us catch a glimpse of the night sky in a galaxy other than our own. Credit ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli UsherPresented by: Joe Liske (Dr J)Images: NASA, ESA, T.M. Brown, A. Ferguson, Digitized Sky Survey 2 (Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin), Koen van GorpMusic: movetwoDirected by: Oli UsherCinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix-media-gmbh.de)Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

12 July 2011: This blue ball is Neptune, the eighth and outermost planet of our Solar System [1]. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope made this picture on 25-26 June 2011 to celebrate the first anniversary of Neptune’s discovery... in Neptune years. Neptune’s leisurely journey around the Sun takes 60 190 Earth days — just under 165 Earth years. This means that 11 July 2011 marked the first time that Neptune has completed a full orbit since its discovery on the night of 23-24 September 1846.Neptune is too distant and too faint to be seen with the naked eye, and so its discovery had to wait for the invention of telescopes.While Galileo Galilei did chance upon it, when it was coincidentally close to the planet Jupiter early in 1613, his notebooks show he misidentified it as a star. After this near miss, Neptune’s true identity would remain hidden for another two centuries.In the summer …

5 July 2011: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has made its millionth observation since its launch 21 years ago. The telescope was used to search for the chemical signature of water in the atmosphere of planet HAT-P-7b [1], a gas giant larger than Jupiter which orbits the star HAT-P-7. Alvaro Gimenez, head of science and robotic exploration for the European Space Agency said: “With a million observations and many thousands of scientific papers to its name, Hubble is one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built. As well as changing our view of the Universe with its stunning imagery, Hubble has revolutionised whole areas of science. Thanks to ESA’s participation in the Hubble project, the European scientific community is playing a starring role in these achievements.”Although Hubble is perhaps best known for its detailed images of astronomical objects, the millionth observation was actually made with a spectrograph. Spectroscopy is the technique of …

22 June 2011: This joint episode of the Hubblecast and ESOcast presents Abell 2744, an unusual cluster of galaxies nicknamed "Pandora’s Cluster". Looking at the galaxies, gas and dark matter in the cluster, scientists have reconstructed the series of huge collisions that created it, and have uncovered some strange phenomena never seen together before. Credit ESA/Hubble, ESOVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserAnimations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis CalcadaWeb and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli Usher and Richard HookNarration: Gaitee HussainImages: NASA, ESA, ESOMusic: movetwoDirected by: Oli UsherExecutive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

16 June 2011: The Hubblecast's Dr J, aka Joe Liske, takes us on a tour of Centaurus A, a bright and dusty galaxy in the Southern sky. Hubble’s observations are the most detailed ever made of this galaxy. Highlights include bright clouds of glowing gas in which stars are being formed, dark streams of opaque dust and a supermassive black hole spitting out huge jets of matter. Credit: ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher and Lee Pullen Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J) Narration: Bob Fosbury Images: NASA, ESA, ESO Music: movetwo Directed by: Oli Usher Cinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix-media-gmbh.de) Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

9 June 2011: In 1987, the light from an exploding star in a neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, reached Earth. Since its launch in 1990, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has studied the wreckage of this dead star, called Supernova 1987A, and has watched it evolve. Supernova 1987A is the closest supernova to Earth to have been observed since the invention of the telescope, and is therefore an ideal laboratory for studying these phenomena.A new study, published on 9 June in the journal Nature, sheds new light on one aspect of this supernova: for about fourteen years after the explosion was first seen, its afterglow gradually got dimmer as the radioactive elements produced by the supernova decayed. More recently, it has started to brighten once more, and is now two to three times brighter than it was at its dimmest point. The team, led by Josefin Larsson of the University of Stockholm, …

23 May 2011: Though the Universe is filled with billions upon billions of stars, the discovery of a single variable star in 1923 altered the course of modern astronomy. The star goes by the inauspicious name of Hubble variable number one, or V1, and resides in the outer regions of our neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy, or Messier 31. In the early 1900s, most astronomers considered the Milky Way to be a single island universe of stars, with nothing observable beyond its boundaries. The Andromeda Galaxy was catalogued as just one of many faint, fuzzy patches of light that astronomers called spiral nebulae. Were these spiral nebulae part of the Milky Way or were they independent island universes lying outside our galaxy? Astronomers didn’t know for sure, until Edwin Hubble found a star in Andromeda that brightened and faded in a predictable pattern, like a lighthouse beacon, and identified it as V1, a Cepheid variable. …

21 April 2011: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is working on three of the most ambitious projects in its history just now. These multicycle treasury programs are using Hubble’s unique ability to observe across the spectrum from ultraviolet, through visible, to infrared light, to build up a library of data which will serve astronomers for many years. In this podcast episode, presenter Dr J (aka Joe Liske) looks at these projects, and how they will complement the capabilities of the next great thing in space-based astronomy, the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Animations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis Calcada Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J) Narration: Gaitee Hussain Images: NASA, ESA Music: movetwo Directed by: Oli Usher Cinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix-media-gmbh.de) Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

7 April 2011: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has joined forces with other telescopes to study the source of one of the most puzzling bursts of high-energy gamma rays and X-rays ever observed. More than a week after the burst was first spotted, high-energy radiation continues to brighten and fade. “We know of objects in our own galaxy that can produce repeated bursts, but they are thousands to millions of times less powerful than the bursts we are seeing now. This is truly extraordinary,” said Andrew Fruchter at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, USA. Astronomers say they have never seen anything this bright, long lasting and variable before. Usually, gamma ray bursts mark the destruction of a massive star, but X-ray emission from these events never lasts more than a few hours. Although research is ongoing, scientists say that the unusual blast likely arose when a star wandered too close to …

1 April 2011: The ESA Hubble Space Telescope Facebook page has just welcomed its 50 000th Facebook friend. This page brings Hubble Space Telescope fans the latest news from ESA, as NASA’s partner in this international project.   As a thank-you message for their friendship, the image above, showing NGC 5882 in the constellation of Lupus (The Wolf), was produced specially for all ESA/Hubble Facebook fans. NGC 5882 is a planetary nebula with unconventional good looks — quite bright, but small, with two distinct, but non-uniform regions: an elongated inner shell of gas and a fainter aspheric shell that surrounds it. However, the dying star at the heart of the planetary nebula dominates the image, shining brightly with an incredible surface temperature of almost 70 000 degrees Celsius. (By comparison, the surface temperature of the Sun is about 5500 degrees Celsius.) This picture comes from images taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. If you …