Beate Czogalla
In May this year the Hubble Space Telescope had its latest — and last — service call. Last week NASA released some spectacular new pictures that prove that Hubble is now in better shape than it has ever been before.
Check out some of the new jaw-dropping views of the universe online!
While most of us think of Hubble as a giant camera floating around in outer space taking cool pictures of distant galaxies it is so much more than that. Many important scientific discoveries were made with it, and even the documentation of cataclysmic events, such as when the remains of comet Shoemaker-Levy smashed into Jupiter.
If you’ve been through the Atlanta Airport lately I hope you took the time to hang out in the underground train stations of the automated cars connecting the individual terminal sections. If you’re about to fly out of Hartsfield International soon, get there extra early and walk all the way to your gate — on the way you will be treated to one of the most beautiful exhibits Atlanta’s airport (or indeed any airport) could ever have: a “Greatest Hits” series of large-scale Hubble photos.
Some of them you’ll be familiar with, such as the rainbow-colored Ring Nebula or the so-called “Pillars of Creation” in the Eagle Nebula. You may have seen the Cat’s Eye Nebula or the Eskimo Nebula before but seeing them in these high quality large prints will wow you all over again.
Well, even so, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Hubble has had a complete make-over, and it’s practically an all-new telescope with new instruments, new computers and new software.
Some of the examples are the images Hubble took of the star cluster Omega Centauri. Compared to what ground-based telescopes can capture, Hubble has much better resolution, and because it can now take pictures on various wavelengths and add those images together it can “see” so much more. It used the brand-new Wide Field Camera 3 to snap a picture that amazed everyone with its beautiful collection of colorful stars.
The colors can be an indicator of the individual stars’ ages, and this particular cluster shows an incredible mix of all ages, including the so-called “Blue Stragglers,” stars that have reached the end of their life span but received the equivalent of a shot in the arm through a collision with another stars whose fuel they now burn.
Or take the new views of the Carina Nebula, a perennial favorite with researchers because of its intense activity of star formation and destruction. Hubble observed the area in several different wavelengths, thus obtaining extremely detailed and very colorful images.
Another fabulous shot is one of the five galaxies in Stephan’s Quintet. Although they appear to huddle close together, one of the galaxies is actually very much in the foreground and much closer to Earth than the others. Those, however, are interacting in a gigantic intergalactic collision, pulling arms off each other and deforming what’s left.
One of the most beautiful images is one of the Butterfly Nebula, also captured by the new Wide Field Camera 3, which reveals never before seen details of mind-boggling color, wispy tendrils and veil-like clouds. Catalogued as item NGC 6302 this nebula is actually located in our own Milky Way — a next door neighbor in cosmic terms. It’s the catastrophic ending of a star explosion, and because a thick belt of dust constricts the gas outflow we see this classic hourglass or butterfly shape. The actual star is hidden behind the dust cloud but its surface has been measured to be about 400,000 degrees Fahrenheit, one of the hottest known stars in our galaxy. Good thing it’s a safe distance away!
Still, I can rave about these pictures until I’m blue in the face, but you won’t believe me until you see them for yourself. It may be the oldest cliché in the world, but in Hubble’s case a picture truly is worth a thousand words.
Visit http://hubblesite.org/ and be sure to sit down when you do!
Beate Czogalla is the associate professor of theater design in the Department of Music and Theater at Georgia College & State University. She has had a lifelong interest in space exploration and has been a solar system ambassador for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/ NASA for many years. She can be reached at our_space2@yahoo.com
