Too Close for Comfort
This Hubble Space Telescope view of the core of one of the nearest globular star clusters, called NGC 6397, resembles a treasure chest of glittering jewels. The cluster is located 8,200 light-years away in the constellation Ara.
The Slant on Saturn's Rings
This is a series of images of Saturn, as seen at many different wavelengths, when the planet's rings were at a maximum tilt of 27 degrees toward Earth. Saturn experiences seasonal tilts away from and toward the Sun, much the same way Earth does. This happens over the course of its 29.5-year orbit.
Lone Black Holes Discovered Adrift in the Galaxy
Two international teams of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes in Australia and Chile have discovered the first examples of isolated stellar-mass black holes adrift among the stars in our galaxy.
Tale of Two Record-Breaking Galaxy Clusters
Looking back in time nearly 9 billion years, an international team of astronomers found mature galaxies in a young universe. The galaxies are members of a cluster of galaxies that existed when the universe was only 5 billion years old, or about 35 percent of its present age.
Hubble Uncovers Dust Disk around a Massive Black Hole
Resembling a gigantic hubcap in space, a 3,700-light-year-wide dust disk encircles a 300-million- solar-mass black hole in the center of the elliptical galaxy NGC 7052.
Hubble Spies Tiny Moons Circling Uranus
These images, taken with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), show several faint moons circling Uranus, including a newly detected moon and a rediscovered satellite. The planet's ring system can also be seen.
Hubble Discovers a Disk Fueling a Possible Black Hole
A Hubble Space Telescope image of a giant disk of cold gas and dust fueling a possible black hole at the core of the galaxy. Estimated to be 300 light years across, the disk is tipped enough (about 60 degrees) to provide astronomers with a clear view of its bright hub, which presumably harbors the black hole.
Hubble Reopens Its Eye on the Universe
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is back in business, as made dramatically evident in stunning new celestial pictures of remote galaxies and a colorful dying star released today.
Hubble Peers into Heart of Dying Star
The Egg Nebula, also known as CRL 2688, is shown on the left as it appears in visible light with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) and on the right as it appears in infrared light with Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS).
Hubble Photographs Turbulent Neighborhood Near Eruptive Star
A small portion of the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of swirling dust and gas near one of the most massive and eruptive stars in our galaxy is seen in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. This close-up view shows only a three light-year-wide portion of the entire Carina Nebula, which has a diameter of over 200 light-years.
Death Spiral Around a Black Hole Tantalizing Evidence of Event Horizon
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope may have, for the first time, provided direct evidence for the existence of black holes by observing the disappearance of matter as it falls beyond the "event horizon."
Hubble Finds a New Black Hole - and Unexpected New Mysteries
Confirming the presence of yet another super-massive black hole in the universe, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have found unexpected new mysteries. The black hole, and a 800 light-year-wide spiral-shaped disk of dust fueling it, are slightly offset from the center of their host galaxy, NGC 4261, located 100 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Virgo.
Hubble Finds a Bare Black Hole Pouring Out Light
Probing the heart of the active galaxy NGC 6251, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided a never-before-seen view of a warped disk or ring of dust caught in a blazing torrent of ultraviolet light from a suspected massive black hole.
Hubble Discovers Black Holes in Unexpected Places
Medium-size black holes actually do exist, according to the latest findings from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, but scientists had to look in some unexpected places to find them.
Hubble Captures an Extraordinary and Powerful Active Galaxy
Resembling a swirling witch's cauldron of glowing vapors, the black hole-powered core of a nearby active galaxy appears in this colorful NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. The galaxy lies 13 million light-years away in the southern constellation Circinus.
Celestial Composition - New Hubble image
Amid a backdrop of far-off galaxies, the majestic dusty spiral, NGC 3370, looms in the foreground in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. Recent observations taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys show intricate spiral arm structure spotted with hot areas of new star formation. But this galaxy is more than just a pretty face.
Ancient Black Hole Speeds Through Sun's Galactic Neighborhood
Data from the Space Telescope Science Institute's Digitized Sky Survey has played an important supporting role in helping radio and X-ray astronomers discover an ancient black hole speeding through the Sun's galactic neighborhood.
A Cosmic Searchlight
Streaming out from the center of the galaxy M87 like a cosmic searchlight is one of nature's most amazing phenomena, a black-hole-powered jet of electrons and other sub-atomic particles. In this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, the blue of the jet contrasts with the yellow glow from the combined light of billions of unseen stars and the yellow, point-like globular clusters of this galaxy.
The Lure of the Rings - Hubble Image
Resembling a diamond-encrusted bracelet, a ring of brilliant blue star clusters wraps around the yellowish nucleus of what was once a normal spiral galaxy in this new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This image is being released to commemorate the 14th anniversary of Hubble's launch on April 24, 1990 and its deployment from the space shuttle Discovery on April 25, 1990.
Fireworks Near a Black Hole in the Core of Seyfert Galaxy NGC 4151
The Hubble telescope's imaging spectrograph simultaneously records, in unprecedented detail, the velocities of hundreds of gas knots streaming at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour from the nucleus of NGC 4151, thought to house a super-massive black hole.
Final Death Throes of Nearby Star Witnessed First-Hand
It takes only a few hundred to a thousand years for a dying Sun-like star, many billions of years old, to transform into a dazzling, glowing cloud called a planetary nebula. This relative blink in a long lifetime means that a Sun-like star's final moments - the crucial phase when its planetary nebula takes shape - have, until now, gone undetected.
Feasting Black Hole Blows Bubbles
A monstrous black hole's rude table manners include blowing huge bubbles of hot gas into space. At least, that's the gustatory practice followed by the supermassive black hole residing in the hub of the nearby galaxy NGC 4438. Known as a peculiar galaxy because of its unusual shape, NGC 4438 is in the Virgo Cluster, 50 million light-years from Earth.
Farthest, Faintest Solar System Objects Found Beyond Neptune
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered three of the faintest and smallest objects ever detected beyond Neptune. Each object is a lump of ice and rock %u2014 roughly the size of Philadelphia %u2014 orbiting beyond Neptune and Pluto, where the icy bodies may have dwelled since the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.
Black Holes Shed Light on Galaxy Formation
Astronomers are concluding that monstrous black holes weren't simply born big but instead grew on a measured diet of gas and stars controlled by their host galaxies in the early formative years of the universe.
