Hubble Opens New Eyes on the Universe

[neufer]

<<September 9, 2009: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is back in business, ready to uncover new worlds, peer ever deeper into space, and even map the invisible backbone of the universe. The first snapshots from the refurbished Hubble showcase the 19-year-old telescope's new vision. Topping the list of exciting new views are colorful multi-wavelength pictures of far-flung galaxies, a densely packed star cluster, an eerie "pillar of creation," and a "butterfly" nebula.

With its new imaging camera, Hubble can view galaxies, star clusters, and other objects across a wide swath of the electromagnetic spectrum, from ultraviolet to near-infrared light. A new spectrograph slices across billions of light-years to map the filamentary structure of the universe and trace the distribution of elements that are fundamental to life. The telescope's new instruments also are more sensitive to light and can observe in ways that are significantly more efficient and require less observing time than previous generations of Hubble instruments. NASA astronauts installed the new instruments during the space shuttle servicing mission in May 2009.

Now that Hubble has reopened for business, it will tackle a whole range of observations. Looking closer to Earth, such observations will include taking a census of the population of Kuiper Belt objects residing at the fringe of our solar system, witnessing the birth of planets around other stars, and probing the composition and structure of the atmospheres of other worlds. Peering much farther away, astronomers have ambitious plans to use Hubble to make the deepest-ever portrait of the universe in near-infrared light. The resulting picture may reveal never-before-seen infant galaxies that existed when the universe was less than 500 million years old.>>

[bystander]

All the images released today (2009 Sept 09)
http://www.hubblesite.org/newscenter/ar ... /25/image/

Welcome back, HST

[neufer]

Blink comparison of visible and infrared Hubble images of Carina nebula

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team / blink gif by Emily Lakdawalla

<<The image of the colorful pillar, which was taken in visible light wavelengths, shows the tip of a 3-light-year-long structure of gas and dust located 7,500 light years away. The pillar is shaped both from outside -- stellar wind from giant nearby stars (out of the frame) punch into it, compressing it -- and from inside -- as the compression of the gas has produced new stars within it. The new stars are mostly invisible in the visible-light image. But in infrared wavelengths (a new capability for the wide-field camera on Hubble) the dust is transparent, and the baby stars are revealed. One of them, at the center of the frame, spouts two impressive jets. Data for the two images were taken by Hubble's newly installed WFC3 on July 24-30, 2009.>>

[harry]

G'day Neufer

That is fantastic video and images.

[harry]

G'day

and also
Images from Refurbished Hubble

Slide show
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/new ... ament.html