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HUBBLE WITNESSES THE FINAL BLAZE OF GLORY OF SUN-LIKE STARS The end of a sun-like star's life was once thought to be simple: the star gracefully casting off a shell of glowing gas and then settling into a long retirement as a burned-out white dwarf. Now, a dazzling collection of detailed views released today by several teams of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals surprisingly intricate glowing patterns spun into space by aging stars: pinwheels, lawn sprinkler style jets, elegant goblet shapes, and even some that look like a rocket engine's exhaust. Release 97-183 http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/97/38.html and via links in http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html or http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html 17 December 1997 |
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SPACE PHYSICISTS FIND THE ENERGY THAT POWERS EXPLOSIVE CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS AND
DISCOVER SIGNATURES OF THEIR ORIGIN AND IMPACT Using spacecraft and supercomputers, scientists from the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) program have developed a new theory for the explosive, high velocity coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that will erupt from the Sun with increasing frequency during the maximum of the new solar cycle. CMEs are eruptions of electrically charged gas from the Sun that can trigger magnetic storms around Earth. Such storms occasionally disturb spacecraft, navigation and communications systems, and electric power grids. For more details check these links: 08 December 1997 |
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ONE STAR'S LOSS IS ANOTHER'S GAIN: HUBBLE CAPTURES BRIEF MOMENT IN LIFE OF LIVELY DUO
Release 97-174 Images are available at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/gif/phiper.gif
(GIF) and http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/jpeg/phiper.jpg
(JPEG). Image files also may be accessed via anonymous ftp from oposite.stsci.edu in /pubinfo:gif/phiper.gif (GIF) and jpeg/phiper.jpg (JPEG). Higher resolution digital versions (300 dpi JPEG) of the release photograph are
available in /pubinfo/hrtemp: 97-39.jpg (color) and 97-39bw.jpg (black & white). 04 December 1997 |
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SOLAR MYSTERY NEARS SOLUTION WITH DATA FROM SOHO SPACECRAFT
A likely solution to one of the major mysteries of the Sun has emerged from recent observations with the European Space Agency/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission. The new findings seem to account for a substantial part of the energy needed to cause the very high temperature of the corona, the outermost layer of the Sun's atmosphere. Since the corona's temperature was first measured 55 years ago, scientists have lacked a satisfactory explanation for why that temperature is three million degrees while the visible surface of the Sun is only 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit or about 6,000 degrees Celsius. Release 97-147 Images to support this story can be found at the following internet locations: Information about the SOHO spacecraft and its observations may be found at URL: 05 November 1997 |
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Hubble Provides Infrared View Of Moon, Ring, And Clouds Probing Jupiter's atmosphere for the first time, the Hubble Space Telescope's new Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) provides a sharp glimpse of the planet's ring, moon, and high-altitude clouds. For more detail check this link: November 20, 1997 |
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HUBBLE CATCHES UP WITH A BLUE STRAGGLER STAR This image is a 3-color composite of archival Hubble Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 images in the ultraviolet (blue), blue (green), and violet (red) filters. Color tables were assigned and scaled so that the red giant stars appear orange, main-sequence stars are white/green, and blue stragglers are appropriately blue. For more details check these links: Photos and captions can be found at: Images are available via the World Wide Web at URL: http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/gif/bss19.gif (GIF), http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/jpeg/bss19.jpg (JPEG). Image files also may be accessed via anonymous ftp from oposite.stsci.edu in /pubinfo: gif/bss19.gif (GIF) and jpeg/bss19.jpg (JPEG). Higher resolution digital versions (300 dpi JPEG) of the release photograph are available in /pubinfo/hrtemp: 97-35.jpg (color) and 97-35bw.jpg (black & white). Full resolution TIFF images are available in /pubinfo/tiff/1997/35a.tif and 35b.tif. |
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CLOSE-UP OF STAR FORMATION IN ANTENNAE GALAXY These four close-up views are taken from a head-on collision between two spiral galaxies, called the Antennae galaxies, seen at image center. The scale bar at the top of each image is 1,500 light-years across. [Left images] The collision triggers the birth of new stars in brilliant blue star clusters, the brightest of which contains roughly a million stars. The star clusters are blue because they are very young, the youngest being only a few million years old, a mere blink of the eye on the astronomical time scale. [Right images] These close-up views of the cores of each galaxy show entrapped dust and gas funneled into the center. The nucleus of NGC 4038 (lower right) is obscured by dust which dims and reddens starlight by scattering the shorter, bluer wavelengths. This is also the reason the young star clusters in the dusty regions appear red instead of blue. This natural-color image is a composite of four separately filtered images taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), on January 20, 1996. Resolution is 15 light-years per pixel (picture element). For more detail check this link: A photo and caption are available via the World Wide Web at |
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HUBBLE REVEALS STELLAR FIREWORKS ACCOMPANYING GALAXY COLLISION This Hubble Space Telescope image provides a detailed look at a brilliant "fireworks show" at the center of a collision between two galaxies. Hubble has uncovered over 1,000 bright, young star clusters bursting to life as a result of the head-on wreck. [Left] A ground-based telescopic view of the Antennae galaxies (known formally as NGC 4038/4039) - so named because a pair of long tails of luminous matter, formed by the gravitational tidal forces of their encounter, resembles an insect's antennae. The galaxies are located 63 million light-years away in the southern constellation Corvus. [Right] The respective cores of the twin galaxies are the orange blobs, left and right of image
center, crisscrossed by filaments of dark dust. A wide band of chaotic dust, called the
overlap region, stretches between the cores of the two galaxies. The sweeping spiral- like
patterns, traced by bright blue star clusters, shows the result of a firestorm of star
birth activity which was triggered by the collision. For more detail check this link: A photo and caption are available via the World Wide Web at |
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HUBBLE IDENTIFIES WHAT MAY BE THE MOST LUMINOUS STAR KNOWN Astronomers
using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have identified what may be the most luminous star
known -- a celestial mammoth which releases up to 10 million times the power of the Sun
and is big enough to fill the diameter of Earth's orbit. The star unleashes as much energy
in six seconds as our Sun does in one year. |
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SLOWEST KNOWN PULSAR REPORTED This image of supernova remnant Kes
73 was taken on March 16 - 17, 1992 |
 JPEG (88 KB) Nuetron Star |
HUBBLE SEES A NEUTRON STAR ALONE IN SPACE This is the first direct look, in visible light, at a lone neutron star, as seen by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble results show the star is very hot (1.2 million degrees Fahrenheit at the surface), and can be no larger than 16.8 miles (28 kilometers) across. These results prove that the object must be a neutron star, because no other known type of object can be this hot, small, and dim (below 25th magnitude). The first clue that there was a neutron star at this location came in 1992, when the ROSAT (the Roentgen Satellite) found a bright X-ray source without any optical counterpart in optical sky surveys. Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 was used in October 1996 to undertake a sensitive search for the optical object, and found a stellar pinpoint of light within only 2 arc seconds (1/900th the diameter of the Moon) of the X-ray position. Astronomers haven't directly measured the neutron star's distance, but fortunately the neutron star lies in front of a molecular cloud known to be about 400 light-years away in the southern constellation Corona Australis. Credit: Fred Walter (State University of New York at Stony Brook), and NASA 24 September 1997 |
 JPEG (53 KB) GIF (84 KB) Mars on Sept. 12 Caption |
[RIGHT] This NASA Hubble Space Telescope picture of Mars was taken on Sept. 12, one day after the arrival of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft and only five hours before the beginning of autumn in the Martian northern hemisphere. (Mars is tilted on its axis like Earth, so it has similar seasonal changes, including an autumnal equinox when the Sun crosses Mars' equator from the northern to the southern hemisphere). [LEFT] Other links: September 17, 1997 |
 GIF (214 KB) JPEG (298 KB) Fading Gamma-Ray Burst Fireball |
HUBBLE STAYS ON TRAIL OF FADING GAMMA-RAY BURST FIREBALL, RESULTS
POINT TO EXTRAGALACTIC ORIGIN New Hubble Space Telescope observations of the ever-fading fireball from one of the universe's most mysterious phenomena -- a gamma-ray burst -- is reinforcing the emerging view that these titanic explosions happen far away in other galaxies, and so are among the most spectacularly energetic events in the universe. For more
details check these links: Images to accompany this release are available electronically Image files also may be accessed via anonymous ftp from oposite.stsci.edu in /pubinfo: gif/grb0228b.gif (GIF) and jpeg/grb0228b.jpg (JPEG). September 16, 1997 |
 (JPEG 20 KB) Lunar Prospector |
Launch of NASA's Lunar Prospector mission to explore the Moon has been
rescheduled from late September to Nov. 23, 1997. September 10, 1997 |
 (JPEG 25 KB) ACE Artist Rendition |
ACE Artist Rendition For more details check these
links: September 5, 1997 |
 Release 97-114P Solar Rotation Rate with Depth (Hi-Res image ) |
SOLAR ROTATION RATE WITH DEPTH: This image, taken using the Michelson
Doppler Imager (MDI) instrument on board the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
(SOHO) spacecraft, shows differences in the rotation speed of solar material. This image
is made from continuous observations over a period of twelve months beginning in May 1996.
The false colors represent speed; red material is rotating the fastest, dark blue, the
slowest. The left side of the figure is rotation speed at the surface of the Sun; red
material at the equator is moving approximately three thousand miles per hour faster than
the blue material at the poles. The cutaway on the right reveals rotation speed inside the
Sun. The large dark red band is a massive fast flow of hot, electrically charged gas
called plasma beneath the solar equator. This plasma stream is approximately 300 thousand
miles wide and 130 thousand miles deep. This material moves about four percent faster than
the surrounding material. Additionally, the newly discovered, but much more subtle, plasma
streams can be seen in the cutaway at the poles. They are the light blue areas embedded in
the slower moving dark blue regions. Although much smaller than the equatorial stream,
they are still immense by terrestrial standards. Each stream is about 17,000 miles across,
large enough to engulf two Earths. This material moves about ten percent faster than its
surroundings. (Photo Credit: Stanford University) For more details check these links: 28 August 1997 |
 Release 97-115P Variations in Solar Motion Image (Hi-Res image 329K) |
VARIATIONS IN SOLAR MOTION IMAGE: This image is taken using the Michelson
Doppler Imager (MDI) instrument on the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)
spacecraft. It is a result of computations using observations taken continuously from May
1996 to May 1997. This false color image represents the difference in speeds between
various areas on the Sun, both at the surface and in the interior. Red and yellow is
faster than average and blue is slower than average. On the left side of the image, the
light orange bands are zones that are moving slightly faster than their surroundings. The
new SOHO observations indicate that these zones extend down approximately 12,000 miles
into the Sun. Sunspots, caused by disturbances in the solar magnetic field, tend to form
at the edge of these bands. Scientists from the Stanford University (California) Solar
Oscillations Investigation (SOI) group speculate that this may be due to the difference in
speed at the edge of these zones that tend to "twist" the magnetic field
generated by the moving hot, electrically charged gas called plasma. The cutaway on the
right side of the image reveals speed variations in the interior of the Sun. Only the
outer 30 percent of the Sun's interior where the variations are more certain is shown. The
red ovals embedded in the green areas at the poles are the newly discovered polar plasma
"jet streams". They move approximately ten percent faster than their
surroundings, and each is about 17,000 miles across, large enough to engulf two Earths. (Photo Credit: Stanford University) For more details check these links: 28 August 1997 |
 Release 97-116P Polar Flows Image (Hi-Res image 164K) |
POLAR FLOWS IMAGE: This image is a graphical representation of the surface
flow from the equator to the poles of the Sun. The flow lines overlay an image of the
rotation speed at the Sun's surface, taken using the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI)
instrument on the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft over a
period of 12 months ending June 1997. The false colors represent speed; red material is
rotating faster than the blue material. As this material rotates, it is also flowing
toward the poles at a relatively slow velocity of about 50 miles per hour. The lines
represent how this motion would appear if you could stand on the surface of the Sun about
30 degrees from the equator, and move with the same speed as the material there. If you
were at this position in the northern hemisphere, material closer to the equator would
appear to move to the right of the image as it flowed north, because it is rotating
faster. Material closer to the north pole would appear to move to the left as it flowed
north, because it is rotating slower. The cutaway on the left of the image represents the
observed polar flow 15 thousand miles beneath the surface and a hypothetical, slower
moving return flow from the poles to the equator, estimated to be 120 thousand miles
beneath the surface. (Photo Credit: Stanford University) For more details check these links: 28 August 1997 |
 BATSE All Sky Map (JPEG - 40KB) |
BATSE All Sky Map: This image was
compiled from observations using the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE)
instrument on board NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) spacecraft. One of BATSE's
primary objectives is to study the mysterious phenomenon of gamma ray bursts, which are
brief flashes of extremely high energy light, known as gamma-rays. This image illustrates
the locations of 1000 gamma-ray bursts detected by the BATSE instrument from April 1991
through May 1994. Each burst lasts from fractions of a second to minutes. They appear to
the BATSE detectors to pop off like flash bulbs at unexpected times from unexpected
directions, flickering and then fading after briefly dominating the gamma-ray sky. These
mysterious events have puzzled astrophysicists as to their origin and nature since they
were first detected by defense satellites in the 1960's. Recently, evidence from an
Italian satellite BeppoSAX, followed up by observations in lower energy light from
observatories on the ground and in space, indicate that their origin is remote, far beyond
our Milky Way Galaxy. If this is so, these events are the most powerful explosions known.
During their brief lifetimes of a few minutes or so, the energy carried by the gamma-rays
from these bursts is equivalent to a year's output by an entire galaxy, consisting of a
hundred billion stars. September 1997 |
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Last Revised: 05 January 1998
