Tag Archive for 'ESA'

Perspective view of chaotic terrain in Pyrrhae Regio, Mars. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Mars Express Spots Chaotic Terrain near Valles Marineris

Dec 31, 2020 by News Staff

The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard ESA’s Mars Express orbiter has imaged a fascinating landscape near the major canyon system of Valles...

The positions and orbits of the newly-discovered high-velocity stars. Image credit: Xiao Kong, China’s National Astronomical Observatories.

Almost Six Hundred New High-Velocity Stars Spotted in Milky Way

Dec 29, 2020 by Sergio Prostak

Using data from the Large Sky Area Multi-object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) and ESA’s star-mapping satellite Gaia, astronomers have discovered...

This Hubble image shows the central region of NGC 2217, a barred spiral galaxy some 83 million light-years away in the constellation Canis Major. This image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in the optical part of the spectrum. It was colorized with data from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS). Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. Dalcanton / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Spots Nearly Face-On Barred Spiral Galaxy: NGC 2217

Dec 28, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) has taken a beautiful image of the central part of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 2217. This Hubble image shows...

This image, taken by the LASCO C2 camera on SOHO, shows comet C/2020 X3 in the bottom left-hand corner. Image credit: NASA / ESA / SOHO.

SOHO Observatory Spots Newly-Discovered Sungrazer Comet

Dec 22, 2020 by News Staff

C/2020 X3, spotted by the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), is part of the Kreutz family, a group of comets with related orbits that...

This Hubble image shows NGC 1947, a lenticular galaxy located some 40 million light-years away in the constellation Dorado. The color image of NGC 1947 was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Two filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Rosario / L. Shatz.

Hubble Observes Unusual Lenticular Galaxy: NGC 1947

Dec 21, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking photo of the lenticular galaxy NGC 1947. This Hubble image shows NGC 1947,...

This image comprises data gathered by ESA’s Mars Express on November 8, 2020, during orbit 21,305. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Mars Express Spots Festive Silhouettes near Martian South Pole

Dec 18, 2020 by News Staff

The wings of an angelic figure, complete with halo, can be seen sweeping up and off the top of the frame in a new image from ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft,...

This Hubble image of the dynamic blue-green planet Neptune reveals a huge dark storm (top center) and the emergence of a smaller dark spot nearby (top right). The giant vortex, which is wider than the Atlantic Ocean, was traveling south toward certain doom by atmospheric forces at the equator when it suddenly made a U-turn and began drifting back northward. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) captured this visible-light image on January 7, 2020, the same time a slightly smaller dark spot mysteriously appeared nearby. That spot then vanished a few months later. The smaller feature may have been a piece of the giant storm that broke off as the larger vortex approached the equator. The large storm is the fourth transient dark spot Hubble has observed since 1993. NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft first imaged two dark features in Neptune’s southern hemisphere in 1989 as Voyager flew by the distant planet. Those storms had disappeared by the time Hubble looked at Neptune in 1994. However, Hubble detected two new dark spots in the planet’s northern hemisphere in 1994 and 1996. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / M.H. Wong, University of California, Berkeley / L.A. Sromovsky & P.M. Fry, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Hubble Monitors Weird Dark Vortex on Neptune

Dec 16, 2020 by News Staff

In 2018, astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope spotted a giant dark storm, which is 7,400 km (4,600 miles) across, in the northern hemisphere...

This Hubble images shows Caldwell 45, a spiral galaxy located 59 million light-years away in the constellation Boötes. Also known as NGC 5248, this galaxy is notable for the ring structure around its nucleus. These nuclear rings are characterized by hot spots of starburst activity. Caldwell 45 was discovered by astronomer William Herschel in 1784. The galaxy has an apparent magnitude of 10 and can be spotted using a small telescope, though it won’t appear very bright. A larger telescope is needed to make out the galaxy’s spiral arms. The best time of year to observe Caldwell 45 is during the northern hemisphere’s spring and the southern hemisphere’s autumn. This stunning image of Caldwell 45 is a composite of observations made by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) in visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light. It captures the glowing red clouds where new stars are forming, scattered along the galaxy’s winding arms. These observations of Caldwell 45 were made to help astronomers learn more about gas in the galaxy’s starburst regions, as well as to better understand the structure of its nuclear rings. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. Lee, California Institute of Technology / A. Filippenko, University of California, Berkeley / Gladys Kober, Catholic University of America.

NASA Releases Stunning Images of 30 Caldwell Objects

Dec 15, 2020 by News Staff

NASA has released more than 50 new Hubble images featuring 30 galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae. All of these objects belong to a collection known to...

This Hubble image shows GAL-CLUS-022058-38303, the largest, nearly-complete Einstein ring known. The image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. Three filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Saurabh Jha, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey / L. Shatz.

Hubble Space Telescope Spots Enormous Einstein Ring

Dec 14, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking photo of GAL-CLUS-022058-38303, the largest and one of the most complete...

HD 106906b occupies an unlikely orbit around a double star 336 light-years away and it may be offering clues to something that might be much closer to home: a hypothesized distant member of our Solar System dubbed Planet Nine. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / M. Kornmesser.

Young Super-Jupiter Circles Its Binary Star Once Every 15,000 Years

Dec 10, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers are still searching for a hypothetical Planet Nine in the distant reaches of the Solar System, but an 11-Jupiter-mass planet called HD 106906b...

This Hubble image shows NGC 1792, a spiral galaxy 36.4 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Columba. The vast swathes of tell-tale blue seen throughout NGC 1792 indicate areas that are full of young, hot stars, and it is in the shades of orange, seen nearer the center that the older, cooler stars reside. The color image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the ultraviolet, near-infrared, and optical parts of the spectrum. It is based on data obtained through five filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: Hubble / ESA / NASA / J. Lee / Leo Shatz.

Hubble Images Beautiful Star-Forming Spiral Galaxy: NGC 1792

Dec 7, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a spectacular image of the starburst spiral galaxy NGC 1792. This Hubble image shows NGC 1792, a spiral...

These images of the Stingray Nebula were captured by Hubble in 1996 (left) and 2016 (right). Image credit: NASA / ESA / B. Balick, University of Washington / M. Guerrero, Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía / G. Ramos-Larios, Universidad de Guadalajara.

Hubble Observes Rapidly Fading Stingray Nebula

Dec 3, 2020 by News Staff

A planetary nebula called the Stingray Nebula has faded precipitously over just the past 20 years, according to an analysis of the archival images from...

Data from more than 1.8 billion stars have been used to create this map of the entire sky. It shows the total brightness and color of stars observed by ESA’s Gaia satellite and released as part of Gaia’s Early Data Release 3. Brighter regions represent denser concentrations of bright stars, while darker regions correspond to patches of the sky where fewer and fainter stars are observed. The color of the image is obtained by combining the total amount of light with the amount of blue and red light recorded by Gaia in each patch of the sky. The bright horizontal structure that dominates the image is the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. It is actually a flattened disk seen edge-on that contains most of the Galaxy’s stars. In the middle of the image, the Galactic center appears bright, and thronged with stars. Darker regions across the Galactic plane correspond to foreground clouds of interstellar gas and dust, which absorb the light of more distant stars. Many of these clouds conceal stellar nurseries where new generations of stars are currently being born. Dotted across the image are also many globular and open clusters, as well as entire galaxies beyond our own. The two bright objects in the lower right of the image are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO / A. Moitinho.

ESA’s Gaia Mission Releases Data on More Than 1.8 Billion Stars

Dec 3, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers from the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium released today the most detailed ever catalogue of Milky Way stars. The new data set,...

As the CMB light (left image) travels through the Universe until observed on Earth (right image), the direction in which the electromagnetic wave oscillates (orange line) is rotated by the angle β; the rotation could be caused by dark matter or dark energy interacting with the CMB light, which changes the patterns of polarization (black lines inside the images); the red and blue regions in the images show hot and cold regions of the CMB, respectively. Image credit: Y. Minami / KEK.

Astrophysicists Find Hints of Beyond-Standard-Model Physics in Universe’s Oldest Light

Nov 30, 2020 by News Staff

Using the polarization data from ESA’s Planck satellite, a mission that have studied the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the oldest light in the Universe,...

This Hubble image shows a galaxy called SDSS J225506.80+005839.9 (visible in the center right portion of the image). Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Zabludoff.

Hubble Space Telescope Sees Beautiful Result of Galaxy Merger

Nov 30, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured a striking photo of the peculiar galaxy SDSS J225506.80+005839.9. This Hubble image...

This false-color image of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was taken by the Rosetta navigation camera on 15 June 2015 from a distance of 207 km from the comet center. Image credit: ESA / Rosetta / NAVCAM / CC BY-SA IGO 3.0.

Solid Phosphorus and Fluorine Detected in Coma of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Nov 27, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using the COmetary Secondary Ion Mass Analyser (COSIMA) instrument on board ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, researchers have detected phosphorus and fluorine...

This Hubble image shows the ultra-diffuse galaxy NGC1052-DF4. Image credit: van Dokkum et al, doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab0d92.

Tidal Stripping Explains Lack of Dark Matter in Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy NGC 1052-DF4

Nov 27, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have detected tidal tails in NGC 1052-DF4, a dark-matter-deficient galaxy some 65 million light-years...

This Hubble image of the nearby active galaxy IC 5063 reveals a mixture of bright rays and dark shadows coming from the blazing core, home of a supermassive black hole. Image credit: Credits: NASA / ESA / Hubble / STScI / W.P. Maksym, CfA.

Hubble Spots Shadow of Supermassive Black Hole’s Torus in IC 5063

Nov 23, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have observed spectacular large-scale dark and light rays beaming out of the bright center of IC...

This Hubble image shows the spiral galaxy UGC 12588. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible region of the spectrum with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Two filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Tully / Gagandeep Anand.

Hubble Space Telescope Looks at Faint Spiral: UGC 12588

Nov 16, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured an amazing new photo of a spiral galaxy called UGC 12588. This Hubble image shows the...

This composite image of the planetary nebula IC 4593 contains X-rays (Chandra) from gas that has been heated to over a million degrees. These high temperatures were likely generated by material that blew away from the shrunken core of the star and crashed into gas that had previously been ejected by the star. Visible light data from Hubble in the image show combinations of nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen. Image credit: NASA / CXC / UNAM / J. Toala et al. / STScI.

Chandra Finds Hot Bubble in Planetary Nebula IC 4593

Nov 13, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have spotted a bubble of ultrahot gas at the center of a planetary nebula called IC 4593. This composite...

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