by The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of a cosmic cloud of smoke some 5,000 light-years from Earth – a light-year is more than 5.8 million miles.
The photo shows a star cluster within the rolling dust and gas wall of the Lagoon Nebula, a vast interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius.
Known as NGC 6530, the star cluster contains at least 4,000 stars, making it one of the largest open star clusters discovered.
These stars are embedded in the swirling gasses of reds, blues, and oranges of the nebula, one of only two star-forming nebulae faintly visible from mid-northern latitudes.
The cluster includes at least 4,000 launches, making it one of the largest in space
Hubble is a joint operation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) that launched the telescope in 1990.
First conceived in the 1940s, Hubble was initially referred to as the Large Space Telescope.
“Since launch, Hubble has overcome its difficult beginnings to conduct countless scientific observations that have revolutionized mankind’s understanding of the universe,” NASA said in a statement.
“From determining the age of the universe to observing dramatic changes in celestial bodies in our own solar system, Hubble has become one of mankind’s greatest scientific instruments.”
Astronomers studied NGC 6530 with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2).
The team looked for new examples of proplyds, a particular class of illuminated protoplanetary disks surrounding newborn stars. The vast majority of Proplyds have only been found in one region, the nearby Orion Nebula.
During the survey, however, the researchers reveled in a stunning nebula of dust and clouds dotted with bright stars.
“Hubble’s ability to observe at infrared wavelengths – particularly with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) – has made it an indispensable tool for understanding stellar birth and the origin of exoplanetary systems,” the researchers said in a statement.
“In particular, Hubble has been critical to studies of the proplyds around newborn stars in the Orion Nebula.”
In February, NASA shared another Hubble image showing a “space triangle” where two galaxies collide, resulting in a tsunami of star birth.
Known collectively as Arp 143, the duo consists of the glittering, distorted star-forming galaxy NGC 2445 and the less prominent NGC 24444.
NGC 2445 has been distorted to appear triangular, with a barrage of bright lights as stars are rapidly formed from material shattered by the collision.
US-based astronomers from the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York and the University of Washington in Seattle have analyzed the images taken by the 32-year-old low-Earth orbiting observatory.
They explained that the galaxies passed through each other, igniting the uniquely shaped firestorm of star formation in which thousands of stars come to life.
The galaxy is awash with star birth because it is rich in gas, the fuel from which stars form, but has yet to escape the gravitational pull of partner NGC 2444, causing them to engage in a cosmic tug of war over being the NGC 2444 seems win.
And in 2020, NASA and ESA announced they had found evidence deep in Hubble’s data that suggests the formation of the first stars and galaxies occurred earlier than previously thought.
These stars are embedded in the swirling gasses of reds, blues, and oranges of the nebula, one of only two star-forming nebulae faintly visible from mid-northern latitudes
In February, NASA shared another Hubble image showing a “space triangle” where two galaxies collide, resulting in a tsunami of star birth
The new findings were discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope, which astronomers used to study the first generation of stars, known as Population III stars, in the early Universe.
The team studied the early Universe from about 500 million to a billion years after the Big Bang by examining the MACS J0416 cluster, nearly four billion light-years from Earth, and its parallel field with the Hubble.
ESA’s Rachana Bhatawdekar, who led the study, said: ‘We found no evidence of these first-generation Population III stars in this cosmic time interval.’
This conclusion means that these stars and the first galaxies are much older because the Hubble was unable to identify them.
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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is still operational and has made more than 1.5 million observations since its mission began in 1990
The Hubble Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
It is named after the famous astronomer Edwin Hubble, who was born in Missouri in 1889.
He is arguably most famous for his discovery that the universe is expanding and the rate at which it is expanding – shaped today by the Hubble constant.
The Hubble Telescope is named after the famous astronomer Edwin Hubble, who was born in Missouri in 1889 (pictured)
Since the start of its mission in 1990, Hubble has made more than 1.5 million observations and contributed to the publication of around 18,000 scientific papers.
It orbits the Earth at a speed of about 17,000 mph (27,300 km/h) in low Earth orbit at about 340 miles altitude.
Hubble has an accuracy of 0.007 arcseconds, which is like aiming a laser beam at Franklin D. Roosevelt’s head some 200 miles away.
The Hubble telescope is named after Edwin Hubble, who was responsible for developing the Hubble constant and is one of the greatest astronomers of all time
Hubble’s primary mirror is 2.4 meters (7 ft, 10.5 in) in diameter and 13.3 meters (43.5 ft) long overall — the length of a large school bus.
The launch and deployment of Hubble in April 1990 was the most significant advance in astronomy since the Galileo telescope.
With five maintenance calls and more than 25 years of operation, our view of the universe and our place in it has never been the same.
