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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) |
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) 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) |
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 |
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Launch of NASA's Lunar Prospector mission
to explore the Moon has been rescheduled from late
September to Nov. 23, 1997. September 10, 1997 |
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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 |
 (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 |
We are interested in what you think, so please send us your comments.
Curator: Lynn Jenner
Author: Darlene A. Ahalt
Last Revised: 01 November 1997
