Tag: Hubble Space Telescope
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‘Super-puff’ planets add a cotton candy flavor to the search for alien worlds
An illustration depicts the sunlike star Kepler 51 and three giant planets that have an extraordinarily low density. (NASA / ESA / STScI / Hustak, Olmsted, Player and Summers) Readings from the Hubble Space Telescope have shed light on a bizarre class of alien planets that have the density of cotton candy. The “super-puff” planets…
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Hubble catches best glimpse yet of interstellar interloper
The comet appears in front of a distant background spiral galaxy (2MASX J10500165-0152029) in this Nov. 19 image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxy’s bright central core is smeared in the image because Hubble was tracking the comet. Comet Borisov was approximately 203 million miles from Earth in this exposure. Its tail of ejected…
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Hubble image shows distant galaxy photobombing an interstellar comet as it swings around the sun
Comet 2I/Borisov appears as a bright dot within a haze of dust, with a distant spiral galaxy in the background of the Hubble Space Telescope image, taken on Nov. 16. The comet was about 203 million miles from Earth when the picture was taken. (NASA / ESA / UCLA / D. Jewitt) The Hubble Space…
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Happy Halloween from Hubble Telescope: Otherworldly ‘eyes’ glow in ghostly galaxy
This Hubble image of the merged galaxy known as AM 2026-424 was taken on June 19 in visible light by the Advanced Camera for Surveys. The system resides 704 million light-years from Earth. (NASA / ESA / UW / Dalcanton, Williams and Durbin) Now here’s something really scary for Halloween: Imagine two galaxies slamming into…
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Hubble observes interstellar visitor
This Hubble image, taken on Oct. 12, 2019, is the sharpest view to date of the comet. Hubble reveals a central concentration of dust around the nucleus (which is too small to be seen by Hubble). Credit: NASA, ESA and D. Jewitt (UCLA) The Hubble Space Telescope has returned an image of a comet that…
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Hubble gets snapshot of interstellar comet
Pictures captured by the Hubble Space Telescope show the second known interstellar object, 2I/Borisov, in all its cometary glory. The images were taken by the telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 on Oct. 12, when 2I/Borisov was 260 million miles from Earth. The object was discovered by Crimean amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov in August, and since…
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Hubble’s premier camera resumes observations
The Hubble Space Telescope is seen after its release from the space shuttle Columbia during a 2002 servicing mission. Credit: NASA The most-used instrument on the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope is back in business after engineers on the ground determined a fault that halted the camera’s science observations earlier this month was caused by erroneous…
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Hubble’s premier camera resumes observations
The Hubble Space Telescope is seen after its release from the space shuttle Columbia during a 2002 servicing mission. Credit: NASA The most-used instrument on the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope is back in business after engineers on the ground determined a fault that halted the camera’s science observations earlier this month was caused by erroneous…
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Hubble Space Telescope team hits ‘reset’ to get balky camera back to doing science
The Hubble Space Telescope gets its final close-up after a shuttle servicing mission in 2009. (NASA Photo) NASA says the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 is back to doing science observations, a week after it went dark due to a telemetry glitch. Basically, engineers hit the reset button to clear up the telemetry…
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Controllers troubleshoot problem with Hubble camera
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated Jan. 11 with correction regarding the field-of-view of the Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument. Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis took this photo of the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009. Credit: NASA The partial shutdown of the U.S. government could complicate efforts to troubleshoot a suspected hardware problem with the Hubble Space Telescope’s…