Hubble Telescope Archives

Undercover Black Hole in the Center of Our Galaxy

June 29, 2016 By Cliff Jenkins Scott

Scientists discovered an undercover black hole that slowly devours its nearby star.

Scientists discovered a new type of undercover black hole that was hiding in plain view. Experts estimate there might be as many as 150 million other gravitational systems inside our galaxy.

Researchers used data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Telescope and the Karl G. Jansky radio observatory to verify the existence of a binary star system that contains a small star and a black hole.

The system was detected through a peculiar radio wave that had been intercepted decades ago by astronomers.

The First Glimpse of VLA J2130+12

The object was first named VLA J2130+12, after the observatory that discovered its existence. It was located as being close to the M15 globular cluster, and scientists have long believed that it was probably a distant galaxy.

Recent measurements made by the European Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network, the Green Bank Telescope and Arecibo Observatory revealed that the object was very close to our galaxy. The distance was calculated to be 7,200 light years, five times closer than the M15 cluster.

Chandra Observatory showed that VLA J2130+12 emits a low quantity of X-rays, and VLA data indicated a high frequency of radio waves.

The Undercover Black Hole

Scientists discovered that the system is a black hole larger than the mass of our Sun that slowly consumes its nearby star. As the process is very slow, VLA J2130+12 had failed to have previously been identified as a black hole.

A common black hole is more aggressive and pulls in a lot of mass at a high speed. Before entering the black hole, the space material gets very hot and emits bright X-rays, which was not the case with the new system.

The undercover black hole is the first one to be discovered outside of a globular cluster.

Hubble observations made scientists conclude that the mass of the black hole is a few times larger than the mass of our Sun, while the mass of the little star in its vicinity is just of a fifth of the Sun’s mass.

Scientists also eliminated the possibility that the system would foster an ultra-cool dwarf, a neutron star, or a white dwarf that would also be capable of pulling material from nearby objects. The bright radio waves and the small X-ray amounts made researchers exclude all other scenarios.

One of the team members that discovered the undercover black hole says that there might be millions of such systems inside our galaxy. Moreover, some of them might be very close to Earth.

Researchers plan to continue to screen the sky to discover more undercover black holes.

Image Source: Wikipedia

Hubble Captures Mysterious UGC 4879 Galaxy

June 13, 2016 By Andreas Petersen

The UGC 4879 Galaxy is considered to be the key to Universe creation.

NASA released a new picture of a far away and isolated galaxy in the Ursa Major constellation. The galaxy was named UGC 4879, and scientists believe it may contain the secrets of the Universe. The photograph was published only a couple of days ago and it depicts an irregular bound of stars, situated at millions of light years away.

The Mysterious UGC 4879 Galaxy

The newly found galaxy is situated at the periphery of the Local Group, which includes the Milky Way and 52 other galaxies. The Local Group is a part of the Virgo Supercluster, which may be a component of the Laniakea Supercluster.

The two principal members of the group are Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, both of which have multiple satellite galaxies.

However, the UGC 4879 galaxy is a lot smaller than the other galaxies in its vicinity. It also is less organized, as it lacks both elliptical and spiral features.

UGC 4879 is almost exclusively constituted by dwarfs, all in blue colors. It has low luminosity and no rings, no dust, no gas, and no recent star formation.

Scientists believe that the galaxy may also contain dark matter.

The picture shows a galaxy that is extremely isolated. Its nearest neighbors is Leo A, located 2.3 million light years away. The distance between UGC 4879 and Leo A is similar to that of the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way.

Scientists believe that isolation makes it be a perfect object of study. The vast majority of galaxies are interconnected; galaxies and space objects influence one another due to their proximity.

The stars from UGC 4879 are believed to be formed four billion years after the Big Bang, just before the 9 billion years pause in star formation. The stage was continued by a more regular star formation, a trend that is active even now.

As this newly found galaxy is somehow by itself in space, scientists believe that its study could lead to new theories about the birth of galaxies and explanations on its irregular shapes.

About Astronomical Photography

Stars colored in blue are thought to have been formed at the same time as the molecular cloud. They are considered to be young and hot, or massive stars.

The red color indicates a star that is cooler than the Sun, which could mean that it is less massive, or that it is close to dying. These small stars are called red dwarfs and scientists believe they are the most numerous star types in the Milky Way.

Stars are powerfully determined by their mass. Thus, the massive stars burn bright and die young, after only tens of millions of years. Smaller stars are said to live for trillions of years, even more than the current age of our Universe.

Stars like the Sun typically live longer than other large stars. Scientists believe the Sun could survive up to ten billion years.

Image Source: Flickr

Earth Is Pummeled by Stardust from a Dead Supernova

April 25, 2016 By Waleed Javed

When people say that we are made of star dust, they are in fact romanticizing. No, all of our composing atoms originated on Earth, even though the Earth is composed of two different planets – the original Earth and Theia. But the remnants of distant stars are far closer than you may even imagine.

While it’s true that any dying star that stops shining right now is too far away for its light to reach us within our lifetimes, that doesn’t mean that the stars we’re still seeing are still in existence. And it certainly doesn’t mean that there is nothing left of them even if they blew up.

Ancient star dust

As you might have surmised from the title, a team of researchers from the Washington University in Saint Louis managed to determine that Earth is pummeled by stardust from a dead supernova. This pummeling is done by specks of intergalactic dust propelled from the exploding star with speeds close to that of light.

The finding comes as a result of a team of researchers discovering tiny deposits of iron-60 isotopes in most of the world’s oceans. The specks of radioactive cosmic dust were very difficult to trace, primarily because of the many shifts in trajectory they suffered as they were slingshot by the gravity and magnetic fields of other celestial bodies.

Isotopes and dating

As for the iron-60 isotopes, the researchers realized that they didn’t come from Earth because iron-60 is only produced in dying stars. It is also with the help of isotopes that scientists were able to figure out that Earth as it is today, as well as the moon, resulted from the head-on collision with a forming planet that was part of our solar system.

Still, once they realized that the dust specks weren’t from Earth, as well that they were radioactive, the team used dating procedures to figure out exactly when the supernova that pushed dust with such force that it’s falling on Earth today exploded, as well as how close it was to our own floating space rock.

Seventeen years of data

By looking at seventeen years of cosmic ray data captured by spectrometers, satellites, and other very expensive imagers, the scientists managed to find fifteen atomic nuclei in the iron-60 or 60Fe particles. And it’s with their help that the team managed to pinpoint the time and place of the exploding supernova.

According to the findings, the supernova was actually pretty close to Earth, and it went up just a few million years ago. While it may seem like a lot, if we consider the distances and times in outer space, that’s quite recent. In fact, it is estimated that our Homo erectus ancestors probably witnessed the explosion in the sky, as it would have been close enough to see with the naked eye.

Image source: Wikimedia

CU Boulder: A Telescope 1000 Times Sharper Than Hubble Telescope

January 27, 2015 By Carol Harper

Researchers at the University Of Colorado (CU) claim that they have designed a telescope much sharper than the Hubble Telescope. The proposal of the new magnifier is known as The CU Aragscope.

A few years ago, NASA initiated a program in order to promote and offer fund for innovative ideas. The government space agency named it as NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concept (NIAC) program. Every year, the agency award funds of around $100,000 for the execution of new ideas. However, the funds are provided in two separate phases for a short time period of nine months.

Last year, The Aragscope was one of the 12 proposals that were selected for the phase 1 funding of NIAC.

The CU-Boulder telescope only require a half mile wide opaque disk. The disk would be located at the front side of the telescope. The main purpose of the disk is to diffract the light waves and converge on a central point. Afterwards, the light would form an amazing image in the telescope.

The new telescope would come with numerous new imaging options. It will even permit scientists to examine the black hole of the horizon. Additionally, it can effortlessly zoom small objects.

Anthony harness, a professor at CU’s Department of Astrophysical and Planetary sciences talked about the new project. He informs that scientists are quite hopeful for the new design. They utilized two previous researches for the phase I and Phase II of the research.

New Horizon Probe Offers First Ever Closer Look of Pluto

January 25, 2015 By Denise Ehrlich

NASA’s New Horizon is all geared up to make another history with its Pluto mission.

The space probe has travelled nearly five billion km to get a closer look of the dwarf planet. However, it has to cross 200 more kilometers to reach at the destination. Last week, the government space agency released first few images of the dwarf planet.

Mark Holdrige, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Applies Physics Laboratory talked disclosed the main aim of these photographs. He informs that scientists took these pictures in order to figure out the exact position of the dwarf planet. They intend to carry out numerous corrections in the route of the spacecraft through these images. It will help the spacecraft to reach the icy object safely.

Although, these images are merely navigation pictures but still they are quite significant. Thus far, no probe or spacecraft has provided such a clear view of the dwarf planet.

The New horizon is expected to touch the surface of the second most massive dwarf planet at a speed of 14Km/s. As per the predictions of mission planners, the spacecraft would probably reach the dwarf planet at 11:50 GMT on the 14^th of July 2015.

The chief objective of mission scientists is to fix seven different instruments on Pluto. These instruments will accumulate significant data and will send it to the space agency.

Dawn Spacecraft Offers the Close-up View of Ceres.

January 20, 2015 By Marlene R. Litten

Recently, NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft sent several new images of the Ceres. The government space agency has released the latest Ceres pictures on the website. These images are three times better as compared to the previous ones. They are nearly 27 pixels wide.

Ceres is considered as the largest body present between the asteroid belt of Mars and Jupiter. The object consists of rock and ice and makes one third of the mass of the asteroid belt.

The Dawn spacecraft is expected to reach Ceres till the beginning of March 2015. In December, the probe captured two slightly blur images of the dwarf planet. The pictures were approximately one third of the size of the new images.

Earlier, it was an extremely complicated task for astronomers to understand surface of Ceres. However, the images of Dawn spacecraft solved all the issues of scientists.

Currently, the scientists at the Planetary Science Institute are carefully examining the images. They claimed that they have found the albedo characteristics of Ceres.

Andreas Nathues, main author of the report states that scientists spotted water vapors in the recent images of Ceres. Additionally, the images reveal presence of crater like structure on the surface of the planet.

The main aim of these pictures is to get navigation guidance for the spacecraft. The government space agency has planned to capture more images in the next few months.

NASA Dawn Probe Gets Closer Look of Ceres, Sends Incredible Images

January 20, 2015 By Carol Harper

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft safely reached near Ceres. The spacecraft captured some incredible images of the dwarf planet.

Ceres is the largest object present in the asteroid belt of Mars and Jupiter. It is made up of fragments of rock and ice. It covers a third of the mass of asteroid belt with a diameter of 950 kilometers

Scientists describe Ceres as an “embryonic planet” as it is an extremely complex task for the researchers to categorize the dwarf planet. The object is not a moon, not a planet or an asteroid. Scientists discovered that the dwarf planet is the combination of all these three things. Hence, the government space agency thinks that Ceres will offer significant information related to the formation of solar system.

In 2004, the Hubble Space telescope snapped a few images of the dwarf planet. The images come with a resolution of 27 pixels from a long distance of nearly 383,000 kilometers. Thus, those images were pretty rough in terms of quality.

Recently, dawn captured a few images of Ceres that are around 80 percent of the resolution of the Hubble Telescope. The images reveal that Ceres is nearly three times better than shown in all the previous images. However, the images published on the website of the space agency are grainy.

Andreas Nathues, head investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research informs that these are first images which are merely captured to get help in navigation. They will be utilized for the direction guidance of the spacecraft. The images evidently display the surface structure of the planet.

A 7 million light year distant “Dwarf Galaxy” discovered

December 25, 2014 By June Harris

Scientists have found another dwarf galaxy using Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera. It is the second small galaxy found after KKR25 in 1999 by the same group of scientists.

A team of American and Russian Scientists have discovered a new unknown dwarf galaxy present at a distance of 7 million light years from Earth. The galaxy was spotted by Special Astrophysical Observatory in Karachai-Cherkessia, Russia.

The new galaxy named KKs3 is one of the 50 galaxies known as the “Local Group” that contains both our Milky Way and the Andromeda. The size of the newly discovered galaxy is much smaller than ours. It is about one-ten thousand of the Milky Way.

The “Dwarf spheroidal” galaxy KKs3 has no spiral arms and absence of gas or dust, the substance that are required to create new stars. Scientists believe that gas and dust are removed from a burst of star formation.

Dimitry Makarov, one of the part of the Hubble team said “Finding objects like KKs3 is painstaking work, even with observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope. But with persistence, we’re slowly building up a map of our local neighbourhood, which turns out to be less empty than we thought,”

“But with persistence, we’re slowly building up a map of our local neighbourhood, which turns out to be less empty than we thought. It may be that are a huge number of dwarf spheroidal galaxies out there, something that would have profound consequences for our ideas about the evolution of the cosmos.” He concluded.

Extreme Storms in Uranus Atmosphere Spotted By Hubble Telescope

November 16, 2014 By Denise Ehrlich

Recently, the researchers have spotted the gas giant illuminating as inexplicable storms appearing in the atmosphere of the Uranus.

While using the Hubble and W. M. Keck II Telescope on Hawaii, researchers first spotted the planet’s strange appearance a vibrant place made an appearance that’s accounted for 30% of the light usually reflected through the gas giant. They believed the images demonstrated an enormous storm interfering with the upper atmosphere of the planet.

The astronomers have observed 8 strong storms that were spotted across a two-day period in the northern hemisphere of Uranus.

“Such kind of activity could have been expected in 2007, when Uranus’s once every 42-year equinox happened and also the Sun shined on the equator. However, we anticipated that this kind of activity might have died down right now. Why we have seen these implausible storms now is beyond anybody’s speculation,” Heidi Hammel, co-investigator of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy said.

Not just professional astronomers were looking into Uranus, but enthusiasts could place new particulars which were skipped by Keck’s imagers. Régis P-Bénedictis, a French amateur astronomer who captured pics of the storms way back in September which were supported by images from his compatriot Marc Delcroix.

Delcroix, who works with a car-parts supplier in Toulouse during the day, continues to be searching skywards, for the last eight years, as well as on a trip to the close by Pic du Midi telescope, he handled to obtain Uranus photos.

“I captured the feature if this was transiting, and that i think, ‘Yes, I first got it!’” he stated. “I had been thrilled to determine such activity on Uranus. Getting particulars on Mars, Jupiter or Saturn, has become routine, but observing the particulars on Uranus and Neptune would be the new frontiers for all of us amateurs and I didn’t wish to miss that.”

“I feel so proud to authenticate myself that these first amateur images of the vibrant storm on Uranus, feeling I had been living a really unique moment for planetary amateur astronomy.”

Another group of images demonstrated that the storms should be developing within the uppermost cloud layer of methane-ice in Uranus’s atmosphere, and assisted induce the operators of the Hubble Space Telescope to get a look too.

The pictures captured by Hubble were amazing, we are told, and can turn over most of the existing presumptions by what happens inside Uranus. The telescope demonstrated that the glow was triggered by multiple storm fronts spread over greater than 9,000 kilometers (5,760 miles) and also at a number of altitudes.

“The cloud complex’s colors and morphology indicate that the storm might be associated with a vortex within the much deeper atmosphere much like two large cloud complexes seen throughout the equinox,” Sromovsky, a planetary scientist at the University of Wisconsin said.

“If these features are high-altitude clouds produced by flow perturbations connected having a much deeper vortex system, such drastic fluctuations in intensity would certainly be possible. These unpredicted findings help remind us acutely of how slight we know about atmospheric dynamics in outer planet atmospheres.”

The study has been presented in a of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences in Tucson, Arizona, on Wednesday. Imke de Pater, the lead-author of the research and UC Berkeley astronomer said that while the evidence of dynamic activity within the atmosphere of Uranus is clear, but still we have no solid theory as to why these storms have so suddenly appeared.

Something Is Echoeing Deep Within The Uranus!

November 13, 2014 By June Harris

Uranus is among the pitch-dark places in our Solar System that makes it hard to spot from Earth. Researchers have caught the gas giant illuminating as inexplicable storms ripped away its atmospheric cover.

While using W. M. Keck II Telescope on Hawaii, researchers first observed the planet’s strange manifestation on ^5th and 6^th of August: a vibrant place made an appearance that’s paid for 30% of the light usually reflected through the gas giant. They believed the images demonstrated an enormous storm interfering with the upper atmosphere of the planet.

Heidi Hammel, co-investigator of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy said, “Such kind of activity could have been expected in 2007, when Uranus’s once every 42-year equinox happened and also the Sun shined on the equator.”

“However, we anticipated that this kind of activity might have died down right now. Why we have seen these implausible storms now is beyond anybody’s speculation.”

Expert astronomers were not the only ones looking into Uranus: enthusiasts could place new particulars which were skipped by Keck’s imagers. Régis P-Bénedictis, a French amateur astronomer who captured pics of the storms way back in September which were supported by images from his compatriot Marc Delcroix.

“I feel so proud to authenticate myself that these first amateur images of the vibrant storm on Uranus, feeling I had been living a really unique moment for planetary amateur astronomy.”

Another group of images divulges the deep planet’s atmosphere. The outcomes demonstrated the storms should be developing within the uppermost cloud layer of methane-ice in Uranus’s atmosphere, and assisted induce the operators of the Hubble Space Telescope to get a look too.

Sromovsky, a planetary scientist at the University of Wisconsin said, “The cloud complex’s colors and morphology indicate that the storm might be associated with a vortex within the much deeper atmosphere much like two large cloud complexes seen throughout the equinox.”

Study concerning the entire findings of Uranus has been presented in a meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences in Tucson, Arizona, on Wednesday.