New image of Mars from the Mars Express
The Apollo 11 Lunar Module approaching the Command Service Module, with an Earth rise for good measure
Hubble’s 5 Weirdest Black Hole Discoveries
Our Hubble Space Telescope has been exploring the wonders of the universe for nearly 30 years, answering some of our deepest cosmic questions. Some of Hubble’s most exciting observations have been about black holes — places in space where gravity pulls so much that not even light can escape. As if black holes weren’t wild enough already, Hubble has helped us make discoveries that show us they’re even weirder than we thought!
Supermassive Black Holes Are Everywhere
First, these things are all over the place. If you look at any random galaxy in the universe, chances are it has a giant black hole lurking in its heart. And when we say giant, we’re talking as massive as millions or even billions of stars!
Hubble found that the mass of these black holes, hidden away in galactic cores, is linked to the mass of the host galaxy — the bigger the galaxy, the bigger the black hole. Scientists think this may mean that the black holes grew along with their galaxies, eating up some of the stuff nearby.
Some Star Clusters Have Black Holes
A globular cluster is a ball of old, very similar stars that are bound together by gravity. They’re fairly common — our galaxy has at least 150 of them — but Hubble has found some black sheep in the herd. Some of these clusters are way more massive than usual, have a wide variety of stars and may even harbor a black hole at the center. This suggests that at least some of the globular clusters in our galaxy may have once been dwarf galaxies that we absorbed.
Black Hole Jets Regulate Star Birth
While black holes themselves are invisible, sometimes they shoot out huge jets of energy as gas and dust fall into them. Since stars form from gas and dust, the jets affect star birth within the galaxy.
Sometimes they get rid of the fuel needed to keep making new stars, but Hubble saw that it can also keep star formation going at a slow and steady rate.
Black Holes Growing in Colliding Galaxies
If you’ve ever spent some time stargazing, you know that staring up into a seemingly peaceful sea of stars can be very calming. But the truth is, it’s a hectic place out there in the cosmos! Entire galaxies — these colossal collections of gas, dust, and billions of stars with their planets — can merge together to form one supergalaxy. You might remember that most galaxies have a supermassive black hole at the center, so what happens to them when galaxies collide?
In 2018, Hubble unveiled the best view yet of close pairs of giant black holes in the act of merging together to form mega black holes!
Gravitational Wave Kicks Monster Black Hole Out of Galactic Core
What better way to spice up black holes than by throwing gravitational waves into the mix! Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time that can be created when two massive objects orbit each other.
In 2017, Hubble found a rogue black hole that is flying away from the center of its galaxy at over 1,300 miles per second (about 90 times faster than our Sun is traveling through the Milky Way). What booted the black hole out of the galaxy’s core? Gravitational waves! Scientists think that this is a case where two galaxies are in the late stages of merging together, which means their central black holes are probably merging too in a super chaotic process.
Want to learn about more of the highlights of Hubble’s exploration? Check out this page! https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/2017/highlights-of-hubble-s-exploration-of-the-universe
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A Little Fireworks, by Alan Friedman (Astronomy Photographer of the Year) [1140x1600]
Saturn is so beautiful that astronomers cannot resist using the Hubble Space Telescope to take yearly snapshots of the ringed world when it is at its closest distance to Earth. 😍
These images, however, are more than just beauty shots. They reveal exquisite details of the planet as a part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy project to help scientists understand the atmospheric dynamics of our solar system’s gas giants.
This year’s Hubble offering, for example, shows that a large storm visible in the 2018 Hubble image in the north polar region has vanished. Also, the mysterious six-sided pattern – called the “hexagon” – still exists on the north pole. Caused by a high-speed jet stream, the hexagon was first discovered in 1981 by our Voyager 1 spacecraft.
Saturn’s signature rings are still as stunning as ever. The image reveals that the ring system is tilted toward Earth, giving viewers a magnificent look at the bright, icy structure.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (GSFC), M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL Team
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Our Newest Solar Scope Is Ready for a Balloon Ride 🎈
Along with the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, or KASI, we’re getting ready to test a new way to see the Sun, high over the New Mexico desert.
A balloon — which looks a translucent white pumpkin, but large enough to hug a football field — will soon take flight, carrying a solar scope called BITSE. BITSE is a coronagraph, a special kind of telescope that blocks the bright face of the Sun to reveal its dimmer atmosphere, called the corona. BITSE stands for Balloon-borne Investigation of Temperature and Speed of Electrons in the corona.
Its goal? Explaining how the Sun spits out the solar wind, the stream of charged particles that blows constantly from the Sun. Scientists generally know it forms in the corona, but exactly how it does so is a mystery.
The solar wind is important because it’s the stuff that fills the space around Earth and all the other planets in our solar system. And, understanding how the solar wind works is key to predicting how solar eruptions travel. It’s a bit like a water slide: The way it flows determines how solar storms barrel through space. Sometimes, those storms crash into our planet’s magnetic field, sparking disturbances that can interfere with satellites and communications signals we use every day, like radio or GPS.
Right now, scientists and engineers are in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, preparing to fly BITSE up to the edge of the atmosphere. BITSE will take pictures of the corona, measuring the density, temperature and speed of negatively charged particles — called electrons — in the solar wind. Scientists need these three things to answer the question of how the solar wind forms.
One day, scientists hope to send an instrument like BITSE to space, where it can study the Sun day in and day out, and help us understand the powerful forces that push the solar wind out to speeds of 1 million miles per hour. BITSE’s balloon flight is an important step towards space, since it will help this team of scientists and engineers fine-tune their tech for future space-bound missions.
Hours before sunrise, technicians from our Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility’s field site in Fort Sumner will ready the balloon for flight, partially filling the large plastic envelope with helium. The balloon is made of polyethylene — the same stuff grocery bags are made of — and is about as thick as a plastic sandwich bag, but much stronger. As the balloon rises higher into the sky, the gas in the balloon expands and the balloon grows to full size.
BITSE will float 22 miles over the desert. For at least six hours, it will drift, taking pictures of the Sun’s seething hot atmosphere. By the end of the day, it will have collected 40 feature-length movies’ worth of data.
BITSE’s journey to the sky began with an eclipse. Coronagraphs use a metal disk to mimic a total solar eclipse — but instead of the Moon sliding in between the Sun and Earth, the disk blocks the Sun’s face to reveal the dim corona. During the Aug. 21, 2017, total eclipse, our scientists tested key parts of this instrument in Madras, Oregon.
Now, the scientists are stepping out from the Moon’s shadow. A balloon will take BITSE up to the edge of the atmosphere. Balloons are a low-cost way to explore this part of the sky, allowing scientists to make better measurements and perform tests they can’t from the ground.
BITSE carries several important technologies. It’s built on one stage of lens, rather than three, like traditional coronagraphs. That means it’s designed more simply, and less likely to have a mechanical problem. And, it has a couple different sets of specialized filters that capture different kinds of light: polarized light — light waves that bob in certain directions — and specific wavelengths of light. The combination of these images provides scientists with information on the density, temperature and speed of electrons in the corona.
More than 22 miles over the ground, BITSE will fly high above birds, airplanes, weather and the blue sky itself. As the atmosphere thins out, there are less air particles to scatter light. That means at BITSE’s altitude, the sky is dimmer. These are good conditions for a coronagraph, whose goal is taking images of the dim corona. But even the upper atmosphere is brighter than space.
That’s why scientists are so eager to test BITSE on this balloon, and develop their instrument for a future space mission. The solar scope is designed to train its eyes on a slice of the corona that’s not well-studied, and key to solar wind formation. One day, a version of BITSE could do this from space, helping scientists gather new clues to the origins of the solar wind.
At the end of BITSE’s flight, the crew at the Fort Sumner field site will send termination commands, kicking off a sequence that separates the instrument and balloon, deploys the instrument’s parachute, and punctures the balloon. An airplane circling overhead will keep watch over the balloon’s final moments, and relay BITSE’s location. At the end of its flight, far from where it started, the coronagraph will parachute to the ground. A crew will drive into the desert to recover both the balloon and BITSE at the end of the day.
For more information on how we use balloons for high-altitude science missions, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/scientificballoons
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Hubble Sees a Galaxy With a Glowing Heart (desktop/laptop) Click the image to download the correct size for your desktop or laptop in high resolution
#InternationalCatDay? Try #IntergalacticCatDay.
Check out features of our feline friends that have come to life as interstellar phenomena!
Pictured first, the Cat’s Paw Nebula is located about 4,200-5,500 light-years from Earth – situated in our very own Milky Way Galaxy. It was named for the large, round features that create the impression of a feline footprint and was captured by our Spitzer Space Telescope. After gas and dust inside the nebula collapse to form stars, the stars may in turn heat up the pressurized gas surrounding them. This process causes the gas to expand into space and form the bright red bubbles you see. The green areas show places where radiation from hot stars collided with large molecules called “polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,” causing them to fluoresce.
Next, you’ll find the Cat’s Eye Nebula. Residing 3,000 light-years from Earth, the Cat’s Eye represents a brief, yet glorious, phase in the life of a sun-like star. This nebula’s dying central star may have produced the simple, outer pattern of dusty concentric shells by shrugging off outer layers in a series of regular convulsions. To create this view, Hubble Space Telescope archival image data have been reprocessed. Compared to well-known Hubble pictures, the alternative processing strives to sharpen and improve the visibility of details in light and dark areas of the nebula and also applies a more complex color palette. Gazing into the Cat’s Eye, astronomers may well be seeing the fate of our sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution … in about 5 billion years.
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This Hubble Space Telescope image shows a young, open star cluster known as NGC 4755 or the Jewel Box. Just like old school friends that drift apart after graduation, the stars in open clusters only remain together for a limited time. They disperse into space over the course of a few hundred million years, pulled away by the gravitational tugs of other passing clusters and clouds of gas.
The Jewel Box is a spartan collection of just over 100 stars. The cluster is about 6,500 light-years away from Earth, which means that the light we see from it today was emitted before the Great Pyramids in Egypt were built.
Head outside and you can see it for yourself! The Jewel Box is visible to the naked eye, but will masquerade as a single star. Grab a pair of binoculars if you want to see more of the cluster’s sparkling stellar population. It is located in the southern constellation of the cross (Crux).
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Two galaxies are locked in a deadly embrace in this Hubble Space Telescope image. Once normal, sedate spiral galaxies like the Milky Way, this galactic pair has spent the past few hundred million years sparring. The clash is so violent that stars have been ripped from their host galaxies to form a streaming arc between the two.
The far-flung stars and streamers of gas stretch out into space, creating long tidal tails reminiscent of antennae (not visible in this close-up Hubble view). Clouds of gas blossom out in bright pink and red, surrounding the bright flashes of blue star-forming regions — some of which are partially obscured by dark patches of dust.
Hubble’s observations have uncovered over 1,000 bright, young star clusters bursting to life as a result of the head-on wreck. 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. The rate of star formation is so high that the Antennae galaxies are said to be in a state of starburst, a period in which all of the gas within the galaxies is being used to form stars. This cannot last forever, and neither can the separate galaxies; eventually the nuclei will coalesce and the galaxies will begin their retirement together as one large elliptical galaxy.
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July 20, 1969: People around the world tune their radios and television sets to watch humans step foot on the Moon for the first time.
Gather ‘round with us today and experience history as it unfolded 50 years ago.
Watch NASA TV at 4:02 p.m. EDT as we replay the original live broadcast of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
Then, at 10:38 p.m. EDT, watch the replay of the original live broadcast of the first steps on the Moon, as the world watched it in 1969:
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egypt-museum-deactivated2021071
Two Fingers Amulet
Obsidian amulet in the shape of two fingers, Late Period, ca. 664-332 BC. “The two fingers amulet, which represents the index and middle fingers, usually with nails and joints clearly defined, is always made of a dark stone such as basalt, obsidian or steatite, or else of black glass, and occurs only in Late Period burials. Its frequent location on the torso near the embalming incision has led to the suggestion that it represents the two fingers of the embalmer.”
― Amulets of Ancient Egypt, by Carol Andrews
Self-portrait by Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, 1628, Museum of the Netherlands
Even as an inexperienced young artist, Rembrandt did not shy away from experimenting. Here the light glances along his right cheek, while the rest of his face is veiled in shadow. It takes a while to realize that the artist is gazing intently out at us. Using the butt end of his brush, Rembrandt made scratches in the still wet paint to accentuate the curls of his tousled hair.