HUBBLE

Our #HubbleTopImage features a young star rebelling against its parent cloud! There is nothing peaceful about star forming region Sh 2-106. A devilish young star, named S106 IR 😈 lies in it and ejects material at high speed, disrupting the gas and dust around it. S106 IR is in the final stages of its formation – it will soon quieten down by entering the main sequence, the adult stage of stellar life. For now, it remains embedded in its parent cloud, but it is rebelling against it. The material spewing off the star gives the cloud its hourglass shape! Read more: ow.ly/peiS50Yytrj #HubbleTopImage 📷 @NASA & @ESA

@ESA_Webb Read more: esawebb.org/news/weic2606/ 📷 @NASA , @ESA , @csa_asc , STScI, A. Simon (NASA-GSFC), M. Wong (University of California); Image Processing: J. DePasquale (STScI) 3/3

The telescopes observed Saturn in complementary wavelengths of light, providing strikingly different views of the ringed planet. Hubble’s observations (visible light) reveal the planet’s subtle colour variations, while Webb’s (infrared) senses chemicals throughout the atmosphere, from its deep clouds to its upper atmosphere. 2/3

🆕 Hubble has teamed up with @esa_webb to provide astronomers with the most comprehensive view of Saturn! 1/3

Crawling across the Crab Nebula! 🦀 Access more space-themed .gifs at our giphy page: ow.ly/V2Hi50YytpB

Hubble is the only telescope with the combination of longevity and resolution capable of capturing these detailed changes 💪 Read more here: esahubble.org/news/heic2607/ 📷 @NASA , @ESA , STScI, W. Blair (JHU). J. DePasquale (STScI), N. Bartmann (ESA/Hubble) 🎶 Stellardrone - Endeavour 2/2

Astronomers in the year 1054 watched closely as a supernova blazed in the sky. A millennium later, astronomers are keeping a close eye on its remnant, the Crab Nebula 🦀 as it continues to evolve! Hubble first observed the nebula in 1999. Its newest image of the Crab Nebula contains extraordinary details of its filamentary structure and the outward movement of those filaments. 1/2

The new image captures extraordinary details of its filamentary structure, as well as the movement of those filaments over the years, blasted outwards at 5.5 million kilometres per hour by synchrotron radiation! 🌬️ Read more: esahubble.org/news/heic2607/ 📷 @NASA , @ESA , STScI, W. Blair (JHU). Image Processing: J. DePasquale (STScI) 3/3

Hubble has returned to the Crab Nebula a quarter-century after its first observation (seen here, recoloured for easy comparison), providing fresh insights into the famous object. 2/3

🆕 A return to the Crab Nebula 🦀 Nearly 1000 years ago, astronomers saw something blazing in the sky – a supernova so bright it was visible in daylight. Today, astronomers continue to watch its remnant (the Crab Nebula) evolve. 1/3

Imagine their surprise when the ‘regular comet’ K1 fragmented into at least four pieces while Hubble was watching! Each piece had a distinct coma (the fuzzy gas-and-dust envelope surrounding a comet’s icy nucleus), and could be clearly resolved by Hubble. 2/2 Read more here: esahubble.org/news/heic2606/ 📷 @NASA , @ESA , D. Bodewits (Auburn). J. DePasquale (STScI)

The comet K1 was making its way out of the Solar System ☄️ when it crumbled into pieces. Astronomers had always wanted to use Hubble to watch a comet break up 🤞 but these observations are very difficult to schedule and were never successful. 1/2

Our #HubbleTopImage features a galaxy blowing bubbles! 🫧 This is the dwarf irregular galaxy Holmberg II, which has an indistinct shape punctuated by huge glowing bubbles of gas. These were created by the energetic lifecycles of many generations of stars. High-mass stars form amid dense regions of gas, then expel stellar winds that blow this gas away 🌬️ At the very end of their lives, they explode in as a supernova. Shock waves rip through these less dense regions blowing out and heating the gas, forming the delicate shells we see today! Read more: ow.ly/JWxa50Yv7XV #HubbleTopImage 📷 @NASA & @ESA

@NASA @esa The results will complement the detailed view of a long-period comet that ESA will obtain from the upcoming mission Comet Interceptor, as well as helping astronomers to select the mission’s target. 4/4

The comet is now a collection of fragments about 400 million km from Earth. Located in the constellation Pisces, it is heading out of the Solar System, unlikely to ever return 👋 Read more: esahubble.org/news/heic2606/ 📷 @NASA , @ESA , D. Bodewits (Auburn). Image processing: J. DePasquale (STScI) 3/4

🆕 A comet has been caught crumbling! ☄️ Comet K1 had just passed close to the Sun 🌞 heading out of the Solar System when Hubble turned its eye towards it and caught something unexpected.. 1/4

Our #HubbleTopImage features the Meathook Galaxy! The Meathook Galaxy (NGC 2442) has a dramatically lopsided shape – one spiral arm is tightly folded in on itself while the other extends far out from the nucleus. This is thought to be due to gravitational interactions with another galaxy at some point in its history. This close-up from Hubble, shared in 2011, focuses on the galaxy’s nucleus and the more compact of its two spiral arms, which was the site of a supernova in 1999! 💥 Read more: ow.ly/O6ur50YscSG #HubbleTopImage 📷 @NASA , @ESA

This episode of #SpaceSparks looks at the Cat’s Eye Nebula 🐱👁️ which was imaged by two telescopes for our latest ESA/Hubble Picture of the Month! 🔗 ow.ly/ILCr50YrFym

Our #HubbleTopImage zooms in on a space oddity! The bizarre green blob of gas in this image is known as Hanny’s Voorwerp. It is the only visible part of a streamer of gas stretching 300,000 light-years around the spiral galaxy IC 2497 – visible because a beam of light from the galaxy’s core has illuminated it 🔦 This beam came from a quasar, a bright object powered by a black hole. Read more: ow.ly/6Q5i50Yp3sb #HubbleTopImage 📷 @NASA , @ESA , William Keel (University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa), and the Galaxy Zoo team