Why do we love Hubble.

Hubble: Frenzied star birth in Haro 11

Haro 11 appears to shine gently amid clouds of gas and dust, but this placid facade belies the monumental rate of star formation occurring in this "starburst" galaxy.

By combining data from the Hubble Space Telescope and ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have created a new image of this incredibly bright and distant galaxy.

The team of astronomers from Stockholm University, Sweden, and the Geneva Observatory, Switzerland, have identified 200 separate clusters of very young, massive stars. Most of these are less than 10 million years old. Many of the clusters are so bright in infrared light that astronomers suspect that the stars are still emerging from the cloudy cocoons where they were born. The observations have led the astronomers to conclude that Haro 11 is most likely the result of a merger between a galaxy rich in stars and a younger, gas-rich galaxy. Haro 11 is found to produce stars at a frantic rate, converting about 20 solar masses of gas into stars every year.

Haro galaxies, first discovered by the noted astronomer Guillermo Haro in 1956, are defined by unusually intense blue and violet light. Usually this high energy radiation comes from the presence of many newborn stars or an active galactic nucleus. Haro 11 is about 300 million light-years away and is the second closest of such starburst galaxies.

The paper describing this result ("Super star clusters in Haro 11: Properties of a very young starburst and evidence for a near-infrared flux excess", by A. Adamo et al.) is available athttp://adsabs.harvard.edu/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.16983.x

New Hubble pictures suggest Milky Way fell together

New infrared images of the Milky Way globular cluster 47 Tucanae (this one recorded at a wavelength of 1.6 micrometers), reveal that both the cluster and the Milky Way's central bulge are 11 billion to 12 billion years old and may have formed simultaneously with the Milky Way’s halo.

BALTIMORE — A preliminary analysis of elderly stars in the Milky Way appears to strike a blow against the prevailing theory of galaxy formation. The study suggests that several large and seemingly disparate chunks of the Milky Way galaxy formed at the same time from the collapse of a single blob of gas and dust.

That’s in direct contrast to the leading galaxy-formation scenario, which holds that the Milky Way and other galaxies began small and grew bit by bit for the most part, gravitationally acquiring intergalactic gas and dust and merging with galaxies in their immediate neighborhood.

The new evidence, which astronomers emphasize is only tentative, comes from a new, ongoing study of a familiar globular cluster — a dense, elderly grouping of more than a million Milky Way stars collectively known as 47 Tucanae. Earlier this year, Harvey Richer of the University of British Columbia in Canada and his colleagues began examining 47 Tucanae with two Hubble Space Telescope cameras — the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys, which stopped working early in 2007 but was revived by astronauts during the servicing mission last year.

The cluster lies near but not inside the Milky Way’s bulge, a massive concentration of stars that surrounds the galaxy’s core. But because the cluster shares several properties with the bulge, such as chemical composition and orbital motion, astronomers consider the age of 47 Tucanae a good proxy for that of the bulge.

An analysis of the Hubble portrait, which includes one of the deepest infrared views ever recorded, reveals that 47 Tucanae, and therefore the Milky Way’s bulge, formed between 11 billion and 12 billion years ago, Richer reported May 4 at a symposium on stellar evolution at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. He said previous age estimates that did not use the new Hubble camera and put the cluster at a more youthful 9 billion years old are simply not correct.

“This is not a young cluster. That’s definitive,” Richer said. But he cautioned that both the analysis and observations of 47 Tucanae are ongoing, so the precise age determination is still “very preliminary.”

The new age determination places the bulge at roughly the same vintage as the halo of the Milky Way, a vast spherical region that extends to the outskirts of the galaxy and envelops the flattened disk containing the Milky Way’s signature spiral arms,.

Researchers had previously determined the halo’s age by studying several globular clusters that lie within it. The similarity in age of 47 Tucanae and the galactic halo suggests that the two structures may have formed simultaneously, in one giant monolithic gravitational collapse of material, Richer said. “It may have been that major components of the galaxy pretty much formed everywhere at the same time very early on and other bits and pieces came along later,” he noted.

A younger age for the bulge would have indicated that the galaxy grew more gradually and from the outside in, with the halo forming first and the central bulge arising a few billion years later.

But if the age estimate holds up, it would appear to be in conflict with the prescription for galaxy formation dictated by the cold dark matter theory, which holds that galaxies began as small fry that built themselves up by stealing gas and stars from their neighbors.

Evidence that the halo and the bulge of the Milky Way formed together could be seen either as a cosmic coincidence or a finding that suggests some previously unknown episode of violence early in the galaxy’s history, commented Rosie Wyse of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who was not a collaborator on the study.

One possibility, she notes, is that the Milky Way suffered a major collision not long after its birth that drove material from the halo into the central part of the galaxy, forming the bulge. That could also explain why the mass of stars in the bulge is about 10 times heavier than that in the halo, she said.

The finding does not rule out the possibility that parts of the Milky Way grew by accreting, or gravitationally accumulating material, from neighbors, Richer said. Indeed, the Milky Way today continues to grow by pulling in small neighboring galaxies, such as the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy.

Happy 20th Birthday Hubble

As the Hubble Space Telescope achieves the major milestone of two decades on orbit, NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute, or STScI, in Baltimore are celebrating Hubble's journey of exploration with a stunning new picture and several online educational activities. There are also opportunities for people to explore galaxies as armchair scientists and send personal greetings to Hubble for posterity.

NASA is releasing a new Hubble photo of a small portion of one of the largest known star-birth regions in the galaxy, the Carina Nebula. Three light-year-tall towers of cool hydrogen laced with dust rise from the wall of the nebula. The scene is reminiscent of Hubble's classic "Pillars of Creation" photo from 1995, but even more striking.

To view the photo, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

NASA's best-recognized, longest-lived and most prolific space observatory was launched April 24, 1990, aboard the space shuttle Discovery during the STS-31 mission. Hubble discoveries revolutionized nearly all areas of current astronomical research from planetary science to cosmology.

Over the years, Hubble has suffered broken equipment, a bleary-eyed primary mirror, and the cancellation of a planned shuttle servicing mission. But the ingenuity and dedication of Hubble scientists, engineers and NASA astronauts allowed the observatory to rebound and thrive. The telescope's crisp vision continues to challenge scientists and the public with new discoveries and evocative images.

"Hubble is undoubtedly one of the most recognized and successful scientific projects in history," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Last year's space shuttle servicing mission left the observatory operating at peak capacity, giving it a new beginning for scientific achievements that impact our society."

Hubble fans worldwide are being invited to take an interactive journey with Hubble by visiting http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/Hubble20/. They can also visit http://www.hubblesite.org to share the ways the telescope has affected them. Follow the "Messages to Hubble" link to send an e-mail, post a Facebook message, or send a cell phone text message. Fan messages will be stored in the Hubble data archive along with the telescope's science data. For those who use Twitter, you can follow @HubbleTelescope or post tweets using the Twitter hashtag #hst20.

The public also will have an opportunity to become at-home scientists by helping astronomers sort out the thousands of galaxies seen in a Hubble deep field observation. STScI is partnering with the Galaxy Zoo consortium of scientists to launch an Internet-based astronomy project where amateur astronomers can peruse and sort galaxies from Hubble's deepest view of the universe into their classic shapes: spiral, elliptical, and irregular. Dividing the galaxies into categories will allow astronomers to study how they relate to each other and provide clues that might help scientists understand how they formed.

To visit the Galaxy Zoo page, go to: http://hubble.galaxyzoo.org

For educators and students, STScI is creating an educational website called "Celebrating Hubble's 20th Anniversary." It offers links to facts and trivia about Hubble, a news story that chronicles the observatory's life and discoveries, and the IMAX "Hubble 3D" educator's guide. An anniversary poster containing Hubble's "hall-of-fame" images, including the Eagle Nebula and Saturn, also is being offered with downloadable classroom activity information.

Visit the website at: http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/hubble_20

To date, Hubble has observed more than 30,000 celestial targets and amassed more than a half-million pictures in its archive. The last astronaut servicing mission to Hubble in May 2009 made the telescope 100 times more powerful than when it was launched.

For Hubble 20th anniversary image files and more information, visit:

http://hubblesite.org/news/2010/13
http://heritage.stsci.edu/2010/13
http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic1007.html

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute conducts Hubble science operations. The institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. in Washington, D.C.

Up close and phenomenal – the Hubble telescope at 20

This image of object NGC 6302, known as the Butterfly Nebula, was taken recently by the Hubble space telescope. Photograph: AP

The brilliant tracers pouring from the centre of this image may have a dainty, colourful appearance. Their origins are anything but peaceful, however. These are rolling cauldrons of gas, heated to more than 20,000C, and they are pouring from a dying star five times bigger than our own Sun. The star – which lies within our own galaxy, the Milky Way – has blasted off its outer envelope of gases and is now unleashing a stream of ultraviolet radiation that is causing those gases to glow.

This is astronomical object NGC 6302, although it is better known, simply, as the Butterfly Nebula. Its image was captured recently by the Hubble space telescope, which was launched by the space shuttle 20 years ago, on 24 April 1980.

Although hampered by a lens that had been ground to the wrong shape, the telescope – named after US astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889–1953) – has proved to be one of the most spectacularly successful spacecraft ever built by Nasa. It was repaired in 1993 and thanks to a further four service missions the Hubble has gone on to generate thousands of images of the heavens, ranging from pictures of the universe's remotest galaxies to photographs of planets inside the solar system. These are the mostly widely used and most popular images produced by any space agency.

When Nasa announced it would no longer service the Hubble following the destruction of the shuttle Columbia in 2003, there was a public outcry in the United States. Nasa was forced to reinstate the mission which took place in May 2009 and which is expected to keep the Hubble operational until 2014 when it will replaced by another orbiting telescope, the James Webb.

By that time, the Hubble – which orbits 350 miles above the Earth – will have produced breathtaking photographs of space for almost a quarter of a century, captivating the public while also playing a crucial role in providing astronomers with precise measurements of the heavens.

Indeed, its studies of galaxies billions of light years away have generated a wealth of scientific papers and provided a new window on the early universe as well as a fresh understanding of its age and rate of expansion. We now know the universe is 13.75 billion years old while the Hubble has also revealed that its expansion, far from slowing down as had been expected, is in fact accelerating due to the influence of a mysterious force known simply as dark energy.

It is intriguing stuff. Nevertheless, it will be for its collection of breathtaking photographs, such as this image of the Butterfly Nebula, that will be the telescope's enduring legacy.

Source:- Guardian.co.uk

Hubble snaps heavyweight of the Leo Triplet

Hubble has snapped a spectacular view of M 66, the largest "player" of the Leo Triplet, and a galaxy with an unusual anatomy: it displays asymmetric spiral arms and an apparently displaced core. The peculiar anatomy is most likely caused by the gravitational pull of the other two members of the trio.

The unusual spiral galaxy, Messier 66, is located at a distance of about 35 million light-years in the constellation of Leo. Together with Messier 65 and NGC 3628, Messier 66 is the member of the Leo Triplet, a trio of interacting spiral galaxies, part of the larger Messier 66 group. Messier 66 wins in size over its fellow triplets — it is about 100 000 light-years across.

This is a composite of images obtained through the following filters: 814W (near infrared), 555W (green) and H-alpha (showing the glowing of the hydrogen gas). They have been combined so to represent the real colours of the galaxy.

Source:- http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/html/heic1006a.html

A Planet-Like Companion Growing up in the Fast Lane

Hubble Space Telescope (top) and Gemini North (bottom) images of the 2M J044144 system showing the smaller companion at 8:00 position. The companion has an estimated mass of between 5-10 times the mass of Jupiter. In the right panel of both the HST and Gemini images the brighter light from the brown dwarf has been removed to show the companion more clearly.

The cliché that youth grow up so fast is about to take on a new twist. This is due to the discovery of a very young planet-like object (with a mass somewhere between 5-10 times that of Jupiter), paired with a low-mass brown dwarf. What is unique about this system is that the planet-like body appears to have formed in about a million years–more rapidly than some theories of planet formation predict.

Kamen Todorov of Pennsylvania State University and co-investigators made the discovery using the keen visible-light eyesight of the Hubble Space Telescope combined with high-resolution adaptive optics infrared images from the Gemini Observatory. The images of the pair were obtained as part of a survey of 32 young brown dwarfs in the Taurus star-forming region located some 450 light years away. The team’s paper is in press for an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/714/1/L84.

Identified as 2M044144, the primary brown dwarf is likely about 20 times the mass of Jupiter and separated from the smaller body by about 3.6 billion kilometers – for comparison, Saturn is about 2.25 billion kilometers from the Sun.

However, it’s the age of the smaller object that is most compelling. According to team-member Kevin Luhman of the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds at Pennsylvania State University, “This is the youngest planetary-mass companion that has been found so far, and its extreme youth provides constraints on how it could have formed. The formation mechanism of this companion in turn can tell us whether it is truly a planet.”

While different processes or combinations may be relevant for each system, here are three possible scenarios for the formation of planetary-mass companions: 1) Dust in a circumstellar disk slowly agglomerates to form a rocky planet 10 times larger than the Earth, which then accumulates a large gaseous envelope; 2) the disk is unstable causing a clump of gas to quickly collapse and form an object the size of a gas-giant planet; or, 3) rather than forming in a disk, a companion forms from the collapse of the vast cloud of gas and dust in the same manner and at the same time as the primary body.

If the last scenario does occur, then this discovery demonstrates that nature can make planetary-mass bodies through the same mechanism that builds stars. This is the likely solution because the planet-like companion is too young to have formed by the first scenario, which is very slow. The second mechanism occurs rapidly, but any disk around this low-mass brown dwarf probably did not contain enough material to make an object with a mass of 5-10 Jupiter masses.

“The most interesting implication of this result is that it shows that the process that makes binary stars extends all the way down to planetary masses. So it appears that nature is able to make planetary-mass companions through two very different mechanisms,” says Luhman. If 2M044144’s companion formed through cloud collapse and fragmentation, as stellar binary systems do, then the companion is not a planet by the definition that planets build up inside disks.

Brown dwarfs are typically tens of times the mass of Jupiter, and they are too small to sustain nuclear fusion and shine as stars do. Low mass objects like these glow primarily due to internal heating from the collapsing material, and they are warmer when very young, as in the case of the 2M044144 system.

Additional evidence to indicate that the new planetary-mass companion formed like a binary star comes from the presence of a nearby small red star that is gravitationally connected to the pair. When the Gemini observations were made, the adaptive optics system used the distant red star as a reference guide star (see background below). In the process, Gemini discovered yet another brown dwarf very close to the distant red star, making 2M044144 a possible member of a quadruple system. Luhman believes that all four objects may have formed in the same cloud collapse: “The configuration closely resembles quadruple star systems, suggesting that all of its components formed like stars,” Luhman said.

Exploring the Carina Nebula by Touch

The Hubble Space Telescope's dramatic glimpse of the Carina Nebula, a gigantic cloud of dust and gas bustling with star-making activity, is a glorious feast for the eyes. Energetic young stars are sculpting a fantasy landscape of bubbles, valleys, mountains, and pillars. Now this celestial fantasyland has been brought into view for people who cannot explore the image by sight.

Max Mutchler, a research and instrument scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., and Noreen Grice, president of You Can Do Astronomy LLC and author of several tactile astronomy books, have created a touchable image of the Carina Nebula that is engaging for everyone, regardless of their visual ability.

The 17-by-11-inch color image is embossed with lines, slashes, and other markings that correspond to objects in the giant cloud, allowing visually impaired people to feel what they cannot see and form a picture of the nebula in their minds. The image's design is also useful and intriguing for sighted people who have different learning styles.

"The Hubble image of the Carina Nebula is so beautiful, and it illustrates the entire life cycle of stars," says Mutchler, who, along with Grice, unveiled the tactile Carina image in January 2010, at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, D.C. "I thought that people who are visually impaired should be able to explore it and learn from it, too."

Located 7,500 light-years from Earth, the nebula is a 3-million-year-old gigantic cloud where thousands of stars are cycling through the stages of stellar life and death. The nebula is 300 light-years wide, but Hubble captured a 50-light-year-wide view of its central region.

A Hubble education and public outreach grant allowed Mutchler to produce the special image. The grant is part of his Hubble archival research project to create complete mosaics of a huge collection of individual Carina Nebula images taken by Hubble (http://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/carina/). Mutchler made 300 copies of the tactile image and will distribute them to organizations that serve the visually impaired, including state schools and libraries for the blind and the National Federation of the Blind in Baltimore, Md.

When Mutchler decided to make a tactile Carina Nebula image last year, he immediately called his friend Grice, who is a pioneer in designing tactile astronomy images for the blind.

But Grice says the nebula image is so visually rich, it posed a challenge to design a textured image that conveys its beauty and complexity.

"When I first looked at the image, I didn't know what to focus on," she recalls. "In order to translate the image into a tactile image, I had to make certain that I understood the individual features that make up the image. There was so much to see."

She spent a couple of hours on the telephone with Mutchler, who gave her a guided tour of the nebula. Then she parsed astronomy books, looking for other views of the nebula. One feature, in particular, gave her some trouble. It was the Keyhole Nebula. Grice couldn't see how the shape in the image resembled a keyhole. Finally, she came across a 1950s image of Carina, and suddenly, she got it. The name referred to the shape of an old-fashioned "skeleton" key. Some visually impaired children who have touched the image say the feature actually resembles a foot, Grice says.

Choosing which features to show on the textured image also posed a challenge. Grice says she relied on a lesson she learned from her first NASA tactile astronomy book of Hubble images called "Touch the Universe": less is more.

"Convey just enough to get the idea," she says. "Then provide some Braille text that explains the science and describes the scene. A picture that is jammed with too many tactile details is very overwhelming for the mind's eye."

Grice used the Keyhole Nebula as the focal point and added other important features suggested by Mutchler to tell the story of stellar life and death, such as pillars of gas and dust that harbor infant stars, a cluster of young stars called Trumpler 14, and a massive, unstable star, Eta Carinae, that is near the end of its life.

The pair then developed a tactile code identifying the raised features and wrote a short guided tour that provides more information on the highlighted on the features. The guide and an audio tour of the nebula are on a special Web page called "The Tactile Carina Nebula" (http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/tactile-carina/), on Amazing Space, the Space Telescope Science Institute's education Web site.

A stable of seasoned tactile astronomy evaluators, including Vivian Hoette, the education outreach coordinator of the University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wis., and Ben Wentworth, a retired teacher from the Colorado School for the Blind in Colorado Springs, Colo., helped test several prototypes of the image. One such evaluation place was the Youth Slam, held in the summer of 2009 in College Park, Md. The National Federation of the Blind coordinated the event to promote careers in math, engineering, and science.

One of the biggest surprises from their testing was the image size. Grice and Mutchler originally thought that a large (almost 6-foot-wide) or medium-sized (3-foot-wide) tactile image would be appropriate for students. The children who sampled the image, however, preferred the much smaller 11-by-17-inch image.

"Many students felt lost with the larger prototype versions because certain objects were separated by empty spaces," Grice says. "However, the smaller version allowed hands to easily track from one object to another."

Adds Hoette, one of the evaluators: "The smaller size gives them enough details so they can get the big picture, and then they can read the science behind it in Braille text, or they can listen to the audio tour on 'The Tactile Carina' Web page while they are touching the image."

The Grice-Mutchler partnership has worked so well that the duo hopes to produce more tactile Hubble images. "It would be great to build up a catalogue of these images for the visually impaired," Mutchler says.

Quasars Form When Galaxies Collide

Image comment: According to a new study, quasars can form when two galaxies collide

Image credits: NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA) / Hubble Collaboration / A. Evans (University of Virginia / NRAO / Stony Brook University) / E. Treister and K. Teramura (IfA / University of Hawaii)

There are many peculiar types of objects in the Universe, but a quasar tends to overcome most of them in terms of weirdness. Scientists describe it as the highly-active area around a supermassive black hole that is capable of gobbling up matter from its surroundings at a frantic rate, while at the same time emitting large amounts of light. This is all well and good, but for many years researchers had no idea as to how these impressive structures formed. Now, new studies appear to suggest that they are the direct result of galactic mergers, when two galaxies “cannibalize” each other, Space reports.

Naturally, there is no way of knowing this for sure, given the fact that we could never observe a galactic collision from start to finish. These processes take millions of years to happen, and observing them is impractical. But we do have supercomputers, capable of simulating the past and the future of a system in which two galaxies are colliding based only on minimal amounts of data. It's through this type of methods that astronomers were finally able to hypothesize that mergers may be directly responsible for the formation of quasars – some of the brightest structures in the Cosmos.

Small- and average-sized black holes never become quasars. Only the largest of the behemoths develop the impressive disk of matter around them, allowing them to grow very fast, while releasing vast amounts of radiation in nearly all wavelength ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. These emissions are caused by the large amount of heat that is caused by the friction of matter before it falls through the event horizon. Because they are always “hungry,” quasars only develop within galaxies that have a sufficiently-bulky core to allow for the structure to feed for a long time.

A new study proposes that the quasars may have found a way around this limitation, by developing at the core of a galactic merger, between two gas-rich galaxies. This idea was first proposed in 1988, by astronomer David Sanders, from the University of Hawaii. It was only now that, together with UH colleagues led by expert Ezequiel Treister, he had a chance to test the idea. Data from the Chandra, Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes were used to look at various quasars in several wavelength ranges, including optical light, X-ray and infrared.

“We made a simple model in which every galaxy merger generates a quasar that is first obscured and then un-obscured. The agreement is just remarkable. That does indicate that pretty much every galaxy merger generates a quasar. When the Milky Way collides with Andromeda, if at that time there's enough gas available, that gas will probably end up in the center around the black hole, making a quasar,” says Treister.

New Hubble treasury project to survey first third of cosmic time

The images above of galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field show the power of the new WFC3 camera (top row) versus the older ACS camera (bottom row, longer exposures). The historic HUDF image below, released in 2004, combines data from the ACS and NICMOS cameras. Image credits: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI), and HUDF Team.

Astronomers will peer deep into the universe in five directions to document the early history of star formation and galaxy evolution in an ambitious new project requiring an unprecedented amount of time on the Hubble Space Telescope.

By imaging more than 250,000 distant galaxies, the project will provide the first comprehensive view of the structure and assembly of galaxies over the first third of cosmic time. It will also yield crucial data on the earliest stages in the formation of supermassive black holes and find distant supernovae important for understanding dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the universe.

Project leader Sandra Faber of the University of California, Santa Cruz, said the effort relies on Hubble's powerful new infrared camera, the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), as well as the telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The proposal, which brings together a large international team of collaborators, was awarded a record 902 orbits of observing time as one of three large-scale projects chosen for the Hubble Multi-Cycle Treasury Program. The observing time, totaling about three and a half months, will be spread out over the next two to three years.

"This is an effort to make the best use of Hubble while it is at the apex of its capabilities, providing major legacy data sets for the ages," said Faber, a University Professor and chair of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC.

The committee that reviewed proposals for the Hubble Multi-Cycle Treasury Program asked Faber to combine her initial proposal with a similar one led by Henry Ferguson, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which operates the Hubble telescope. Faber and Ferguson will work together to manage the project, which involves more than 100 investigators from dozens of institutions around the world.

A powerful telescope like Hubble allows astronomers to see back in time as it gathers light that has traveled for billions of years across the universe. The new survey is designed to observe galaxies at distances that correspond to "look-back times" from nearly 13 billion years ago (about 600,000 years after the Big Bang) up to about 9 billion years ago. Astronomers express these distances in terms of redshift ("z"), a measure of how the expansion of the universe shifts the light from an object to longer wavelengths. The redshift increases with distance, and this study will look at objects at distances from about z=1.5 to z=8.

"We want to look very deep, very far back in time, and see what galaxies and black holes were doing back then," Faber said. "It's important to observe in different regions, because the universe is very clumpy, and to have a large enough sample to count things, so we can see how many of one kind of object versus another kind there were at different times."

One of Faber's colleagues at UCSC, Garth Illingworth, recently demonstrated the power of Hubble's new camera when his team described the most distant galaxies ever detected (see earlier story). Illingworth's team focused on one small patch of sky known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Faber's team will look both "deep" and "wide" to collect observations of a large number of distant objects in different regions of the sky.

The new data will be used to answer many key questions about galaxy evolution and cosmology. By studying how galaxy masses, morphologies, and star formation rates changed over time, researchers can test theories of galaxy formation and evolution.

"The earliest galaxies we see are truly infant galaxies. We want to know when massive galaxies first appeared, and when they started to look like the beautiful spiral galaxies we see today," Faber said. "This study will allow us to chart for the first time the maturation process of galaxies."

Of all the stars that have formed in the universe, only about 1 percent had formed by the time of the most distant epoch included in the survey. "When you combine our data with closer Hubble surveys, the telescope now covers 99 percent of all star formation in the universe," Faber said. "All but the very first moments of galaxy evolution will be revealed."

The study focuses on several patches of sky where deep observations with other instruments are providing data in multiple wavelengths of light, including x-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. X-ray emissions reveal the presence of a supermassive black hole at the core of a galaxy powering an "active galactic nucleus." Understanding the role of black holes in the evolution of galaxies is an important aspect of this project, Faber said.

"We don't know if the black holes form later or are a central feature of these galaxies from the very beginning. We hope to observe the earliest stages of black hole growth," she said.

Another important component of the project is the search for distant examples of a particular type of exploding star known as a Type Ia supernova. Astronomers have used the uniform brightness of these supernovae to measure cosmic distances, leading to the conclusion that a mysterious force called dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the universe. Observations of distant Type Ia supernovae will enable researchers to verify that their brightnesses are indeed uniform and to measure more accurately how the rate of expansion of the universe has changed over time.

Faber and her fellow astronomers expect the first data from their observations to be available by the end of the year. Data from this project will be made available to the entire astronomy community with no proprietary period for Faber's team to conduct their own analysis. The likely result will be a race among teams of scientists to publish the first results from this new treasure trove of data. But Faber said the project will yield such rich data it will keep astronomers busy for years to come.

"We're very excited, not only about the 900 orbits, but also about what this new camera can do. It's just amazing what it sees," Faber said. "This project is the biggest event in my career, the culmination of three decades of work using big telescopes to study galaxy evolution."

Additional information about the project is available on the Cosmology Survey Multi-Cycle Treasury Program web site.

Blushing dusty nebula

High resolution image (6.1 MB)

This close-up of an area in the northwest region of the large Iris Nebula seems to be clogged with cosmic dust. With bright light from the nearby star HD 200775 illuminating it from above, the dust resembles thick mounds of billowing cotton. It is actually made up of tiny particles of solid matter, with sizes from ten to a hundred times smaller than those of the dust grains we find at home. Both background and foreground stars are dotted throughout the image. Researchers studying the object are particularly interested in the region to the left and slightly above centre in the image, where dusty filaments appear redder than is expected.

North is down, East is right. The field of view is 3.3 arcminutes. The image is a composite of four images obtained through blue, green, near-infrared and H-alpha filters.

Credit: NASA/ESA

A recent Hubble Space Telescope image of part of NGC 7023, or the Iris Nebula, highlights a perfect dust laboratory in the sky.

On Earth, we tend to find dust nothing more than a nuisance that blankets our furniture and causes us to sneeze. Cosmic dust can also be a hindrance to astronomers because cameras using visible light cannot see through it. However, studying cosmic dust in detail helps astronomers to pin down the ingredients of the raw mixture that eventually gives birth to stars.

This close-up of an area in the northwest region of the large Iris Nebula seems to be clogged with cosmic dust. With bright light from the nearby star HD 200775 illuminating it from above, the dust resembles thick mounds of billowing cotton. It is actually made up of tiny particles of solid matter, with sizes from ten to a hundred times smaller than those of the dust grains we find at home. Both background and foreground stars are dotted throughout the image.

NGC 7023 is a reflection nebula, which means it scatters light from a massive nearby star, in this case, HD 200775. Reflection nebulae are different from emission nebulae, which are clouds of gas that are hot enough to emit light themselves. Reflection nebulae tend to appear blue because of the way light scatters, but parts of the Iris Nebula appear unusually red.

Researchers studying the object are particularly interested in the region to the left and slightly above centre in the image, where they find dusty filaments to be redder than expected. An unknown chemical compound, most likely based on hydrocarbons, is responsible for the red tinge. The high resolution and sensitivity of Hubble's instruments allow astronomers to study the area in detail. Images and spectra are only part of the analysis. On Earth, scientists are performing additional laboratory tests to assess better the exact chemical composition of the nebula.

NGC 7023 was discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1794; the nebula is in the constellation of Cepheus, the King, in the northern sky. NGC 7023 is approximately 1400 light–years from Earth and about six light-years across. This aethereal image was taken by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Astronomers also used Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) instrument to try to determine which chemical elements are present in the nebula.

Mission Accomplished: Leaving Hubble Better Than Ever

Take one space shuttle, seven highly trained astronauts, tons of equipment, and one legendary orbiting telescope and you have the 5.3 million-mile odyssey that was the final servicing mission for NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. › Read More

Atlantis Lands After Completing Successful Hubble Repair Mission

STS-125 crew completes 13-day mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
› Space Shuttle Section | › President Obama Calls Crew

Hubble's final servicing mission Gallery on Boston.com

The Big Picture has a feature on the Hubble servicing mission.

Hubble Image Gallery at Geenstijl

World's Observatories Watching 'Cool' Star

Photographed by the Hubble Telescope, the bright star inside this nebula (gas cloud) is a very young white dwarf. (Credit: Courtesy of Space Telescope Institute/NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team)

The Whole Earth Telescope (WET), a worldwide network of observatories coordinated by the University of Delaware, is synchronizing its lenses to provide round-the-clock coverage of a cooling star. As the star dims in the twilight of its life, scientists hope it will shed light on the workings of our own planet and other mysteries of the galaxy.

The dying star, a white dwarf identified as WDJ1524-0030, located in the constellation Ophiuchus in the southern sky, is losing its brightness as it cools, its nuclear fuel spent. It will be monitored continuously from May 15 to June 11 by WET, a global partnership of telescopes which was formed in 1986.

Like an international relay team, observers at Mt. Cuba Observatory in Greenville, Del., will focus on and photograph the white dwarf until sunrise, and then observers at McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, Texas, and at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Ariz., will stand watch while the star is in their sky, followed by observers in New Zealand, Australia, China, and so on, around the globe.

The thousands of photographs of the white dwarf taken by WET will be e-mailed to the command center at Mt. Cuba Observatory staffed by University of Delaware researchers, for archiving and eventual analysis using the fledgling science of “star quakes” known as asteroseismology.

“A white dwarf is the size of the Earth and as dense as the sun. This star pulsates or quakes as waves of energy travel through it -- its outer surface sloshes from side to side, like waves on the ocean,” says Judi Provencial, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at UD and director of the Delaware Asteroseismic Research Center (DARC).

“What is of interest to scientists is the shape of the pulses,” Provencal notes. “From them, we can measure how the atmosphere is moving around in these pulsating stars and figure out what's going on inside them. This one is really sloshing around.”

There are thousands of white dwarfs in our galaxy; however, only about 30 percent are bright enough for scientists to study using asteroseismics, which can determine the age, temperature and composition of a star from its oscillations and brightness.

Provencal says that WDJ1524-0030 is one of only about 20 percent of the stars in the universe whose atmosphere is composed of helium versus hydrogen. The WET team hopes to find out the composition of the star's core, whether hydrogen or oxygen.

The process of discovery will take on the order of two years to stitch together all of the images, analyze the data, interpret the data with the input of the WET community and report the results. Eventually, the findings will be applied to other stars, including the sun, and to our own planet, Provencal says.

“We don't understand the weather on Earth, the transport of energy,” she says. “We don't understand convection at all. Hopefully, this field of research, which is still very new, will help every aspect of astronomy.”

Putting the Observing Run into Focus

Organizing all of the telescopes for an observing run may seem akin to aligning the planets. More than 20 telescopes are participating in the current run. Provencal and Susan Thompson, co-director of DARC, needed to submit applications for some of the major telescopes several years in advance.

Only one in five proposals typically gets selected by such competitive research facilities as the William Herschel Telescope in the Canary Islands. With a lens that is 4.2 meters in diameter, the telescope is the largest that has signed on to participate, Provencal says.

Before the advent of the Internet, Provencal says she and her colleagues at the command center used to have to call each observatory on the telephone to participate.

“In South Africa, we had to call the international operator, who could only get out to the telescope by a hand-cranked phone and you could hear that in the background. The Internet has taken some of the fun out of that, but France still likes to be called every day of the observing run,” Provencal says. “And at Peak-Turskol in Russia, the astronomers say they have several cats that like to participate.”

Provencal says that she and her colleagues in the WET community like to study cooling stars “because it's cool.”

While the administration of the Whole Earth Telescope is supported by the Crystal Trust Foundation, the observers are not paid to observe.

“Without them, it wouldn't happen,” she says. “It's a community effort.”

Participating telescopes

These observatories are participating in the Whole Earth Telescope’s international observing run, which UD is coordinating, to monitor the white dwarf WDJ1524-0030. Telescope lens diameter is in parentheses:

• Beijing Astronomical Observatory (BAO), China (2.1 m/6.9 ft)
• Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory (BOAO), South Korea (1.8 m/5.9 ft)
• Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), Chile (0.9 m/3 ft)
• Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik Tübingen, Germany (0.8 m/2.6 ft)
• Kitt Peak National Observatory, Arizona, USA (2.1 m/6.9 ft)
• Las Cumbres Observatory, California, USA
• Lulin Observatory, Taiwan (1 m/3.2 ft)
• McDonald Observatory, Texas, USA (2.1 m/6.9 ft)
• Moletai Astronomical Observatory, Lithuania (1.5 m/4.9 ft)
• Mt. Abu Observatory, India (1.2 m/3.9 ft)
• Mt. Cuba Astronomical Observatory, Delaware, USA (0.6 m/2 ft)
• Mt. John Observatory of the University of Canterbury, New Zealand (1 m/3.2 ft)
• Mt. Suhora Astronomical Observatory, Cracow Pedagogical University, Poland (0.6 m/2 ft)
• Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP), France (1.93 m/6.3 ft)
• Observatrio del Teide, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain (0.6 m/2 ft)
• Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, Italy (1.5 m/4.9 ft)
• Peak Terskol Observatory, Russian Federation (2 m/6.6 ft)
• South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), South Africa (1 m/3.2 ft)
• Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR), Chile (4.2 m/13.8 ft)
• Paul and Jane Meyer Observatory, Texas, USA (0.6 m/2 ft)
• Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy Observatory (SARA), Florida, USA (1 m/3.2 ft)
• Vienna Observatory, Austria (0.68m/2.2 ft)

Hubble Upgraded, Atlantis Prepares For Friday Landing

The STS-125 crew talked with President Obama Wednesday after successfully upgrading Hubble.
› President Obama's Call | › Hubble Servicing Mission

Astronauts Release Hubble

After five spacewalks on consecutive days to bring new life to the Hubble Space Telescope, astronauts on space shuttle Atlantis said goodbye to the venerable observatory, releasing it back to its orbital home. Watching it float out of the cargo bay was a bittersweet moment for everyone involved with the mission, and space enthusiasts, too, as even though Hubble is in great shape and now set to look out farther than ever before, this is that last time humans will visit, touch and care for the world’s most famous telescope. “It’s a sad moment but a great moment, because we put the Hubble in the best posture and and best performance in can be in,” said Jon Morse, NASA Astrophysics division director.

Using the shuttle’s robot arm, astronaut Megan McArthur gently lifted Hubble from the servicing platform in Atlantis’ payload bay where it had been positioned since last week Wednesday. The video is unique in that we get to hear all the action from the flight deck during Hubble’s release — almost as good as being there!

The astronauts conducted five spacewalks — two of them marathon sessions — spending more than 36 hours to upgrade and outfit Hubble with new instruments, including a new Wide Field Planetary Camera that should be able to see objects formed just 500 million years after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

The Atlantis crew completed everything NASA had planned, including the unprecedented repair of science instruments not designed to be worked on in space.

Bounty of Space Telescopes Fuels Golden Age of Astronomy

With Hubble's new facelift almost complete, and the successful launch of the Herschel and Planck observatories last week, a golden age of astronomy is truly under way, scientists say.

"I don't think there's any question about that. We have the largest set of assets in space for astronomers ever," said Jon Morse, NASA's Astrophysics Division Director. "It really is a golden era to be a practicing astronomer. It entices me to leave my desk job and go back to the field."

There are now more than a dozen major observatories in space eyeballing everything from the sun to planets around other stars to radiation from the dawn of time.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is getting its fifth and final makeover. New instruments and repairs will give the 19-year-old veteran a new lease on life. Meanwhile, the Herschel and Planck observatories were launched into space last week by the European Space Agency. These telescopes will expand on astronomers' abilities to detect objects in the infrared and microwave parts of the spectrum, respectively.

"We're, I think, going through a peak in our capabilities on orbit with refurbishing Hubble, the number of other missions we have, and then with the launch of Herschel/Planck," Morse told SPACE.com.

And it's not just the sheer amount of technology in space. It's also the coverage the telescopes give astronomers.

All radiation -- from low-energy, long-wavelength radio waves to visible light to high-energy, short-wavelength X-rays and gamma rays -- is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Different objects are best studied in different wavelengths, and some of that radiation doesn't penetrate Earth's atmosphere and so can only be studied from space.

"We cover essentially the entire electromagnetic spectrum now, all the way from the gamma rays out to the microwaves and everything in between," Morse said. This capability allows astronomers to look at particular regions of the universe in multiple wavelengths of light.

With different telescopes looking at different parts of the spectrum, they can work together to provide a clearer pictures of particular regions of space, for example, clusters of galaxies.

"You see very different things" this way, said Chandra X-ray Observatory's Press Scientist Peter Edmonds. Chandra has teamed up with both Hubble and the Spitzer Space telescope to do this kind of work. You "get a much better picture" of the universe this way, Edmonds said.

Space also offers clearer viewing not obstructed by Earth's atmosphere, so that even with modest lenses and mirrors, space telescopes can spot pockets of faraway star birth, or the formation stages of galaxies and mergers of black holes from the farthest reaches of the cosmos. The impact of all these missions on astronomy has already been a great one, Morse said.

"Without question, it has revolutionized our understanding of astrophysics," he said.

But with enigmas such as dark matter and dark energy and questions like whether there are other Earth-like worlds remaining to be solved, the host of space telescopes — old and new — promise many great discoveries to come from the new golden age.

It's an exciting time to be an astronomer, both Edmonds and Morse said. Starting out as an astronomer in this current era of space observatories can be compared to starting out in the field of manned space travel in 1960s, Edmonds said.

"I believe that the future of astrophysics is bright and that our best days are yet to come," Morse said. "I have to say 'our best nights'," he added, as any good astronomer would.

The Big Picture: Hubble's final servicing mission

On Monday, May 11, after months of delays and preparation, NASA's Space Shuttle Atlantis launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the final servicing mission to the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. The seven crew members left Florida for low Earth orbit at 2:01 pm, for a scheduled 11-day mission, including 5 days of Extra-vehicular activity (EVAs) to work on the Hubble. So far the repairs appear to be going very well - the final EVA is scheduled for today, and the landing planned for May 22nd. I was fortunate enough to attend the launch at Banana Creek viewing area, and wish to extend my gratitude to all the people at NASA. (Only one of the photos below is mine) (31 photos total)