NightSky.ie » Hubble Watch

M31-Milky Way simulated collision

paul — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 22:55:03 +0000

It may be a few billion years away(about 4.5), but it is believed that the two largest galaxies in our local group will merge. The radial velocity of the Andromeda galaxy with respect to the Milky Way can be measured by examining the Doppler shift of spectral lines from stars in the galaxy, but the transverse velocity cannot be directly measured. Thus, while it is known that the Andromeda galaxy is getting closer to the Milky Way by about 120 km/s, there is no way to tell whether it is going to collide or miss. There are lots of examples from Hubble of galaxy collision as shown below.

Galaxy Collision: Picture Source: NASA, Hubble Space Telescope

You can get a much closer look using a zoomable image of the Antenna Galaxies at the NASA website.

There is also a cool simulation of what the Andromeda and Milky Way merge might actually look like.

Hubble IMAX 3D

paul — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 21:50:33 +0000

The Hubble IMAX 3D release, in theatres from March 19. The trailer looks great, and it is to be narrated byLeonardo DiCaprio

I’ve heard about the amazing work done by NASA astronauts to repair and upgrade this amazing telescope and it looks like this story might help tell that tale. Should be worth a look!

New Stunning Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image released

paul — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:15:55 +0000

This is yet another astonishing image from Hubble. This is a new version of the Ultra Deep Field, in near-infrared light and taken with the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3. This image is of the same region as the visible Ultra Deep Field in 2004, but at longer wavelengths providing more information about the early Universe’s history. We are starting to see the earliest galaxies, 600 Million years after the big bang.

Click on the image and see the larger image. Or better yet click here for a zoomable version. The sheer number of galaxies is incredible….It will blow you away. The faintest objects visible now are about one billion times fainter than the dimmest visible objects seen with the naked eye. Its truely astronomical!

Hubble Ultra Deep Field Infrared. Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory and the University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (UCO/Lick Observatory and Leiden University) and the HUDF09 Team

“Hubble has now re-visited the Ultra Deep Field which we first studied 5 years ago, taking infrared images which are more sensitive than anything obtained before,” said Dr. Daniel Stark, a postdoctoral researcher from Cambridge University. “We can now look even further back in time, identifying galaxies when the Universe was only 5 percent of its current age – within 1 billion years of the Big Bang.”

“The expansion of the Universe causes the light from very distant galaxies to appear more red, so having a new camera on Hubble which is very sensitive in the infrared means we can identify galaxies at much greater distances than previously possible,” said Stephen Wilkins, from Oxford University.

Want to know where in the sky this image is taken from? Look below. In the centre of the image is the HDUF cross-hair. That the “empty” piece of sky….

Where in the Sky the HUDF image was taken

Titan, Enceladus, Dione, and Mimas Transit of Saturn

paul — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:23:33 +0000

Taken February, 2009 – Hubble

Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Acknowledgment: M. Wong (STScI/UC Berkeley) and C. Go (Philippines)

“This picture was taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on 24 February 2009, when Saturn was at a distance of roughly 1.25 billion kilometres from Earth. Hubble can see details as small as 300 kilometres across on Saturn. This close-up view of Saturn’s disc captures the transit of several moons across the face of the gas giant planet. The giant orange moon Titan — larger than the planet Mercury — can be seen at upper right. The white icy moons that are much closer to Saturn, hence much closer to the ring plane in this view, are, from left to right: Enceladus, Dione, and Mimas. The dark band running across the face of the planet slightly above the rings is the shadow of the rings cast on the planet.”

Astonomy Picture of the day – Lagoon Nebula

paul — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:55:32 +0000

Cool image of the Lagoon Nebula. Taken as part of the GigaGalaxyZoom Project.

Lagoon Nebula - Astronomy Picture of the day (credit:http://apod.nasa.gov)

Hubble – More Amazing pictures

paul — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:26:05 +0000

So what are we going to do without Hubble? It may have been recently upgraded but it’s not going to last forever…. and there is nothing, NOTHING planned to replace it’s visible light telescope. These images are simply breathtaking.

More images from http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/html/heic0911b.html

Some of the best hubble pictures posted on YouTube

admin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:23:37 +0000

There are many locations to view these pictures but the sheer variety is astounding. With the recent repairs/upgrades to Hubble at a cost of 5Billion dollars we can expect 5 to 10 more years of amazing photographs.

Hubble Deep Field Movie

admin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:45:01 +0000

Hubble gazes to the end of the universe…

This is an incredible movie showing just how far hubble has gazed into the universe

Hubble Deep Field…

admin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:31:31 +0000

It is hard to image how we attempted to visualise the universe prior to Hubble. Back in 1996 Hubble was pointed at an “empty” area of the night sky for approx 10 days, it took the following image…. The point in the sky was just a tiny spot (3 arc seconds or the size of a small coin 70 meters away…).

Amazing as this picture was, Hubble once again looked at a single spot for approximately 11 days in 2006 with upgraded technology and saw some of the most distanct galaxies, possibly even some of the earliest forming galaxies in our universe….cool huh!