The star AG Carinae is surrounded by an expanding shell of gas and dust. The nebula is about five light-years wide, which
equals the distance from here to our nearest star, Alpha Centauri.
The huge structure was created from one or more giant eruptions
about 10,000 years ago, when our human ancestors were just beginning to farm. The star’s outer layers were blown into space—like a boiling teapot popping off its lid. The expelled
material amounts to roughly 10 times our Sun’s mass.
These outbursts are typical of a rare breed of star
called a luminous blue variable (LBV). These stars are among the most massive and brightest stars known and live for only a few million years.
AG Carinae resides 20,000 light-years away inside our Milky Way galaxy. The star’s expected lifetime is
between 5 million and 6 million years.
This image was taken to celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope's 31st anniversary.
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2021/news-2021-017
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Tags: AG Carinae AG Car HD 94910 NASA Hubble ESA Hubble Space Telescope telescope space telescope cosmos universe space cosmic astronomy star nebula luminous blue variable
This spectacular image from the Hubble Space Telescope captures the spiral galaxy NGC 105, which lies roughly 215 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces.
While it looks like NGC 105 is plunging edge-on into a neighboring galaxy, this is just a circumstance of perspective. NGC 105’s elongated neighbor is actually far more distant. Such visual associations are the result of our Earthly perspective and they occur frequently in astronomy.
Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 observations in this image are from a vast collection of Hubble measurements examining nearby galaxies that contain two fascinating astronomical phenomena – Cepheid variable stars and cataclysmic supernova explosions. While these two phenomena may appear unrelated – one is a peculiar class of pulsating stars and the other is the explosion caused by the catastrophic death of a massive star – astronomers use both to measure the vast distances to astronomical objects.
Both Cepheids and supernovae have very predictable luminosities. Astronomers use these so-called “standard candles” to determine distances by comparing how bright these objects appear from Earth to their actual brightness. NGC 105 contains both supernovae and Cepheid variables, giving astronomers the opportunity to calibrate the two distance measurement techniques against one another.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Jones, A. Riess et al.
Acknowledgement: R. Colombari
For more information, visit: esahubble.org/images/potw2201a/
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Tags: NGC 105 NASA Hubble ESA Hubble Space Telescope telescope space telescope cosmos universe space cosmic astronomy galaxy galaxies spiral galaxy
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the iridescent interior of one of the most active galaxies in our local neighborhood — NGC 1569, a small galaxy located about eleven million light-years away in the constellation of Camelopardalis (The Giraffe).
This galaxy is currently a hotbed of vigorous star formation. NGC 1569 is a starburst galaxy, meaning that — as the name suggests — it is bursting at the seams with stars, and is currently producing them at a rate far higher than that observed in most other galaxies. For almost 100 million years, NGC 1569 has pumped out stars more than 100 times faster than the Milky Way!
As a result, this glittering galaxy is home to super star clusters, three of which are visible in this image — one of the two bright clusters is actually the superposition of two massive clusters. Each containing more than a million stars, these brilliant blue clusters reside within a large cavity of gas carved out by multiple supernovae, the energetic remnants of massive stars.
In 2008, Hubble observed the galaxy's cluttered core and sparsely populated outer fringes. By pinpointing individual red giant stars, Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys enabled astronomers to calculate a new — and much more precise — estimate for NGC 1569’s distance. This revealed that the galaxy is actually one and a half times farther away than previously thought, and a member of the IC 342 galaxy group.
Astronomers suspect that the IC 342 cosmic congregation is responsible for the star-forming frenzy observed in NGC 1569. Gravitational interactions between this galactic group are believed to be compressing the gas within NGC 1569. As it is compressed, the gas collapses, heats up and forms new stars.
For more information, please visit:
www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubble-hotbed-of-...
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Aloisi, Ford
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
Text credit: European Space Agency
Tags: NGC 1569
NGC 2146 is classified as a barred spiral because of its shape, but the most distinctive feature is the dusty spiral arm that has looped in front of the galaxy's core as seen from our perspective. The forces required to pull this structure out of its natural shape and twist it up to 45 degrees are colossal. The most likely explanation is that a neighboring galaxy is gravitationally perturbing it and distorting the orbits of many of NGC 2146's stars. It is probable that we are currently witnessing the end stages of a process that has been occurring for tens of millions of years.
NCG 2146 is undergoing intense bouts of star formation, to such an extent that it is referred to as a starburst galaxy. This is a common state for barred spirals, but the extra gravitational disruption that NGC 2146 is enduring no doubt exacerbates the situation, compressing hydrogen-rich nebulas and triggering stellar birth.
For more information, visit: www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1134a/
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
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Tags: NGC 2146 barred spiral galaxy Hubble NASA galaxy cosmos space astronomy ESA Hubble Space Telescope galaxy merger starburst galaxy
The Hubble Space Telescope was used to observe Saturn on June 6, 2018, when Saturn was only approximately 1.36 billion miles from Earth, nearly as close to us as it ever gets.
Saturn’s magnificent ring system is near its maximum tilt toward Earth (which was in 2017). Though all of the gas giants in our solar system boast rings, Saturn’s are the largest and most spectacular, stretching out eight times the radius of the planet.
Saturn’s colors come from hydrocarbon hazes above the ammonia crystals in the upper cloud layers. Unseen lower-level clouds are either ammonium hydrosulfide or water. The planet’s banded structure is caused by the winds and the clouds at different altitudes.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2018-29
Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (GSFC) and the OPAL Team, and J. DePasquale (STScI)
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