Hubble Space Telescope Captures Image of A Lightsaber In Space

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image that resembles a lightsaber.

This cosmic object that seems to copy the iconic weapon of a Jedi can be found in the Orion B Molecular Complex in the constellation Orion, 1350 light years away. This object is a result of jets of gas and dust that are spewn out by a newly formed star. These lightsaber like objects are called Herbig-Haro Objects.

This particular object in the image is HH24.

Herbig-Haro Objects are young stars that occasionally blast off hot gas and other material into space. It is a result of stars ejecting materials that collides with nearby clouds of gas and dusty at very high speeds. Herbig–Haro objects are generally found in star-forming regions. Several are often seen around a single star and is aligned along its rotational axis.

Herbig-Haro objects are named after George Herbig and Guillermo Haro who first studied them in detail. The two astronomers (independent of each other) were studying star formations when they came upon these objects. They both recognized that these were a by-product of the star formation process.

Twenty Years Later: Hubble Telescope Recaptures Pillars of Creation in HD

The Pillars of Creation is one of the most memorable and iconic images taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Telescope in 1995.

Now, 20 years after the image was taken, the Hubble telescope returned to that location and took an even clearer and amazing image of the Pillars of Creation in HD. Watch accompanying video (Hubblecast 82) for more details.

The Pillars of Creation is a part of Messier 16 or the Eagle Nebula. Nebulas are clouds of gas and dust in space where stars and planets start to form. It is believed that our own Sun was formed in a similar region resembling the Pillars.

The new mage of the Pillars of Creation is so iconic that it is not unnatural to see the image in movies, t-shirts, stamps, and accessories. Its release marks the 25th year of the Hubble Telescope in orbit and was presented at the 225th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, Washington, USA.

Exoplanet HD 189733b Determined to be Color Blue Like the Earth

A planet discovered in 2005 in the constellation of Vulpecula (the Fox) was determined to be colored blue with the help of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The blue colored planet is similar to how the Earth's color looks like from space.

The planet, HD 189733b which is a huge gas giant similar to the planet Jupiter, is 63 light years away and is closely orbiting its host star; around 1/30 the distance the Earth orbits the Sun. Although the planet comes off with a deep cobalt blue color, its atmosphere is vastly different from that of the Earth. The HD 189733b's atmosphere has a temperature of over 1000 degrees Celsius, and it rains glass, sideways, in howling 7000 kilometre-per-hour winds. HD 189733b is slightly bigger than the planet Jupiter.

Scientists have determined that the blue color of the planet is because of silicate particles in its atmosphere which scatters blue light. These particles, along with condensates of iron and aluminium oxide dust (which the mineral sapphire is made up of), also contributes to a hazy red sunset when seen from the planet.

By measuring how much radiation is reflected, a technique known as Albedo, scientists can determine the amount of light reflected. This value ranges from 0 to 1, with 1 being perfect reflectivity and 0 being a completely black surface. The Earth has an albedo of around 0.4. HD 189733b is observed to have an albedo of 0.40 ± 0.12 at a wavelength of 290–450 nm.

Hubble Space Telescope Captures Image of LHC 120-N 11 in the Large Magellanic Cloud

The Hubble Space Telescope captures an image of LHC 120-N 11, a region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy 200,000 light years from Earth. (Image by Hubble/ESA)

The Large Magellanic Cloud is an irregular galaxy but has a clearly visible bar, and a single spiral-arm-like structure. These properties are similar to that of spiral galaxies leading to the belief that the LMC was once a small spiral galaxy but was pulled out of shape by the gravitational effect of the Milky Way.

Globular Star Cluster Tucanae 47 In Great Detail

There are over 150 globular clusters in the Milky way galaxy. The most massive globular star cluster is Omega Centauri. The second most massive is 47 Tucanae.

Star clusters are a group of stars that are held together by their own gravity. Because of their strong gravitational attraction, they form a spherical shape. These spheres contains millions of stars and they get more densely packed as one gets nearer its center.

Inside 47 Tucanae are 23 known millisecond pulsars that are highly magnetized, rotating stellar remnants that emit bursts of radiation as they spin. 47 Tucanae has the most number of these pulsars in observed globular clusters. Pulsars are short for "pulsating stars". These are neutron stars that were formed when a star explodes into a super nova.

Stars in Star Clusters Observed To Age At Varying Rates

Astronomers at the ESO, ESA, and NASA have observed that some stars in star clusters appear young looking than other stars. This is despite the fact that most of the stars in a cluster were formed at the same time and are roughly the same age. This observation was arrived at upon studying bright blue stars called blue stragglers which appear younger than other stars in the cluster.

Star clusters, as the name suggests, are groups of stars that are grouped together. These stars are bound together by their respective gravitational fields.

There are two kinds of clusters; open star clusters and globular star clusters. Open star clusters are a loosely group of hundreds of young stars. Their gravitational attraction is not strong enough to form a tight bond.

A globular star cluster is made up of hundreds and thousands of very old stars whose gravitational attraction to each other is strong enough that they form a very tight spherical shape. As one goes closer to the center, the number of stars get denser.

These clusters orbit a galaxy or the galactic core as one unit much like a satellite would.

The Milky Way galaxy is known to host around 150 star clusters but many more are believed to be undiscovered. The closest galaxy to the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy, has 500 clusters while Galaxy M87 has 13,000 globular clusters.

The image above shows the globular cluster NGC 6388 observed by the European Southern Observatory.

Hubble Telescope Reveals Galaxy NGC 922 Collided With Smaller Galaxy 330 Million Years Ago

The Hubble Space Telescope's image of galaxy NGC 922 reveals that it could have collided with a smaller galaxy 330 million years ago. The shape of the galaxy suggests that the collision may have happened right in the center of of NGC 922.

When two galaxies collide, it does not resemble nor is it similar two trains crashing into each other. It is a more complex process where the two start to interact with each other because of their gravity.

The interaction of the one to the other makes both galaxies pull and push towards each other like two tangled nets in the ocean. They may start eating matter from the other. Sometimes they merge into one galaxy while other collisions retain their shape and material afterwards.

Galaxy collisions are common in the universe. It is estimated that in about 4.5 billion years, the Milky Way galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy to form one giant elliptical galaxy.

Collisions are better defined as gravitational interactions of two galaxies on each other.

Massive Galactic Filament of Dark Matter Imaged By Hubble Space Telescope In 3D

Filaments in outer space are called supercluster complexes or great walls. Galaxy filaments are the largest cosmic structures in the universe with lengths extending from 50 to 80 megaparsecs h^-1.

These filaments are thread-like structures that form boundaries between large voids in the universe. Astronomers theorize that moments after the Big Bang, a bulk of the matter in the universe condensed into a web of tangled filaments connected to each other at the locations of massive galaxy clusters.

Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Takes Detailed Images of Dwarf Galaxy NGC 2366 And Its Bright Nebula

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has collected detailed data of the dwarf galaxy NGC 2366 which contains a bright star forming nebula.

A dwarf galaxy is a small galaxy composed of up to several billion stars. A regular galaxy like the Milky Way has 200 to 400 billion stars. Since these dwarf galaxies are small, they have been observed to be pulled toward and merge with nearby spiral galaxies.

A nebula is a dense cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases within the diffuse interstellar medium. A nebula is often a star-forming region where the formation of gas, dust, and other materials merge together to form large masses that attracts more matter into it. This goes on until it has enough mass to form a star. The remaining materials are then believed to form planets, and other planetary system objects.

Hubble observes a dwarf galaxy with a bright nebula

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has made detailed observations of the dwarf galaxy NGC 2366. While it lacks the elegant spiral arms of many larger galaxies, NGC 2366 is home to a bright, star-forming nebula and is close enough for astronomers to discern its individual stars. Credit: NASA & ESA

The starry mist streaking across this image obtained by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is the central part of the dwarf galaxy known as NGC 2366. The most obvious feature in this galaxy is a large nebula visible in the upper-right part of the image, an object listed just a few entries prior in the New General Catalogue as NGC 2363.

A nearby yellowish swirl is not in fact part of the nebula. It is a spiral galaxy much further away, whose light is shining right through NGC 2366. This is possible because galaxies are not solid objects. While we see the stars because they shine brightly, galaxies are overwhelmingly made up of the empty space between them. Hubble's high-resolution image illustrates this perfectly: the stars are small points of light surrounded by the darkness of space.

VLT Survey Telescope (VST) Captures Powerful Images of Galaxies

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST) is the latest telescope to be added to ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It is housed in an enclosure immediately adjacent to the four VLT Unit Telescopes on the summit of Cerro Paranal under the pristine skies of one of the best observing sites on Earth. The VST is a wide-field survey telescope with a field of view twice as broad as the full Moon. It is the largest telescope in the world designed to exclusively survey the sky in visible light. Over the next few years the VST and its camera OmegaCAM will make several very detailed surveys of the southern sky. All survey data will be made public.

VLT stands for Very Large Telescope.

The Hercules galaxy cluster (also known as Abell 2151) lies about 500 million light-years away in the constellation of Hercules. It is unlike other nearby galactic assemblies in many ways. As well as being rather irregular in shape, it contains a wide variety of galaxy types, particularly young, star-forming spiral galaxies, and there are no giant elliptical galaxies in sight.

The new image was taken with the VST, the most recent addition to ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile. The VST is a survey telescope equipped with OmegaCAM, a 268-megapixel camera that provides images covering very large areas on the sky. Normally only small telescopes can image large objects such as this in a single shot, but the 2.6-metre VST not only has a wide field, but can also exploit the superb conditions on Paranal to simultaneously obtain very sharp and deep images quickly.

Galaxy pairs getting up close and personal and on their way to merging into single, larger galaxies can be seen all over this image. The numerous interactions, and the large number of gas-rich, star-forming spiral galaxies in the cluster, make the members of the Hercules cluster look like the young galaxies of the more distant Universe. Because of this similarity, astronomers believe that the Hercules galaxy cluster is a relatively young cluster. It is a vibrant and dynamic swarm of galaxies that will one day mature into one more similar to the older galaxy clusters that are more typical of our galactic neighbourhood.

Helix Nebula - The Science Cloud: Business and Science Tie Up For European Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a service where all computer applications, data, and software are provided to computers and other devices as a metered service over a network or the internet. This does away with installing it directly to the computer. Everything is stored on a server or cloud for computers to access.

A consortium of leading IT providers and three of Europe’s biggest research centres announced a partnership to launch a European cloud computing platform. "Helix Nebula - the Science Cloud", will support the massive IT requirements of European scientists, and become available to governmental organisations and industry after an initial pilot phase.

The three research centers are: The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), and The European Space Agency (ESA).

The partnership is working to establish a sustainable European cloud computing infrastructure, supported by industrial partners, which will provide stable computing capacities and services that elastically meet demand.

This pan-European partnership across academia and industry is in line with the Digital Agenda of the European Commission and will foster innovation for science and create new commercial markets.

Rosetta Spacecraft To Land Probe on Comet

On 02 March 2004, Flight 158 started a ten year journey to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Launched from a Ariane-5G rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, Rosetta's mission is to undertake a long term exploration of the comet at close quarters. Rosetta is named after the Rosetta stone which helped decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft is comprised of a large orbiter and a small lander named Philae after an island in the Nile where the Rosetta stone was discovered. Each of these carries a large complement of scientific experiments designed to complete the most detailed study of a comet ever attempted.

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is named after the two Ukranian astronomers who discovered it on 11 September 1969 at the Alma-Ata Astrophysical Institute in Kazakhstan. An overall 3-D model was constructed and computer generated images created from Hubble Space Telescope pictures taken on March 2003 in preparation for the Rosetta mission.

Russians Send Probe To Mars Moon

Russian Phobos-Grunt mission will launch a probe to the Mars moon Phobos. It will scoop up rock and dust samples from the Martian moon and bring them back to Earth.

On Wednesday at 00:16 local time (20:16 GMT Tuesday), the probe will lift off from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It will be lifted off to space on a Zenit-2SB rocket. According to calculations, the probe will reach Phobos in September 2012. The Mars moon samples will be back on Earth in 33 months time.

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UPDATE 07:48 GMT Nov 9: The Phobos-Grunt rocket veered off course within minutes of starting its mission. An engine designed to keep the probe on track failed to start and is currently stuck in an Earth orbit. Russian engineers have three days to correct the fault before its batteries run out
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Aside from its main mission, the Phobos-Grunt will also carry China's first Mars satellite, the Yinghuo 1. It will ride piggy back and be released into an observational orbit around Mars.

The European Space Agency assisted with the mission by giving detailed mapping of the moon by it's Mars Express (MEx) satellite. This information is used to identify a suitable location for landing. They also are providing ground support for the mission.

Video: News report on the stalled mission to Mars

Phobos is of interest to astronomers. The Potato-shaped moon is thought to be an asteroid that got caught by the gravity of Mars. Some think that it may be a collection of rocks that formed around Mars after its formation.

It is one of two moons at Mars (the other being Deimos) and has an extremely low density may mean that it has many interior voids.

Once the probe has landed on Phobos, a robotic arm will pick up samples of the regolith or "soil". Analysis will be made within the probe's instruments and around 200g of the material will be transferred to a canister and sent back to Earth. The canister is expected to fall to Earth in the Kazakh desert by August 2014.

Aside from ESA, The French (Cnes) and German (DLR) space agencies also participated by providing instrumentation for Phobos-Grunt. The US advocacy group, The Planetary Society is also contributing to the mission by sending a payload of live microorganisms to test the hypothesis that life can survive in space after being blasted off planets from meteor impacts.

On another front, NASA is partnering with Astrobotic Technology to plan a mission that will mine fuel and minerals (specially Helium 3) on the moon.

Video: Mission animation of the Phobos-Gunt made by the Russian Federal Space Agency

Scientists Discover Huge Cloud of Water in Outer Space

Astronomers have discovered a huge cloud of water vapor in outer space.

It's cold enough to form comets and deliver oceans to dry planets. How big is the cloud?

It's huge enough to fill thousands of earth sized planets with water.

Astronomers detected the object "within the planet-forming disk surrounding the star TW Hydrae. TW Hydrae is 176 light years away in the constellation Hydra and is the closest solar-system-to-be."

University of Michigan astronomy professor Ted Bergin says, “This tells us that the key materials that life needs are present in a system before planets are born... We expected this to be the case, but now we know it is because have directly detected it. We can see it.”

Here is the European Space Agency's video on water in outer space:

Using the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (HIFI) aboard the Hershel Space Observatory, researchers detected the chemical signature of water in the object. The orbiting space observatory is part of a European Space Agency mission along wtih the participation of NASA. Hershel is an orbiting telescope that allows astronomers, scientists, and researchers to observe at the far-infrared wavelengths. These wavelengths are where organic molecules and water emit their chemical signatures.

According to the UM article, "Scientists had previously found warm water vapor in planet-forming disks close to the central star. But until now, evidence for vast quantities of water extending into the cooler, far reaches of disks where comets and giant planets take shape had not emerged. The more water available in disks for icy comets to form, the greater the chances that large amounts will eventually reach new planets through impacts..."

The principal investigator of the study, Michiel Hogerheijde of Leiden University in the Netherlands says that, “The detection of water sticking to dust grains throughout the planet-forming disk would be similar to events in our own solar system’s evolution, where over millions of years, these dust grains would then coalesce to form comets. These would be a prime delivery mechanism for water on planetary bodies,”

Scientists theorized that comets delivered a significant portion of Earth's oceans. Researchers also found that the ice on a comet called Hartley 2 has the same chemical composition as our oceans water.

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