Film & Animation

Truth and Beauty in Astronomy Visualization

Please tune in (or join us in person, if you’re in the Austin, Texas area!) for a lecture by Hubble astrophysicist Dr. Frank Summers at the Astronomy Department at the University of Texas at Austin this Thursday at 7 p.m. CST. This talk will be live-streamed here on our YouTube Channel, but if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and say hi!... Read More

Across the Universe: Hubble Ultra Deep Field

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) peers deeper into the universe than any previous visible-light image. Multiple observations of the same small patch of sky were combined for an equivalent exposure time of more than 11 days. Revealed within the image are thousands of galaxies located many billions of light-years away. Many of these galaxies are too small and too faint to be otherwise seen. Most importantly, because the light from distant galaxies requires billions of years to cross the intervening space, astronomers get to see them as they were billions of years ago. Much of the history of galaxy development can be found within the HUDF image.... Read More

Star Clusters in Collision

The dense star cluster called R136 is located within the Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus), a giant star-forming region in a nearby dwarf galaxy. Astronomers suspect that the multiple clumps of stars within R136 are actually a pair of interacting star clusters. Supporting evidence for this idea comes from the large number of “runaway stars” — stars moving with unusually high velocity — that have been found within the nebula. A single, large star cluster would not produce as many runaway stars as two smaller interacting star clusters. In addition, some of these runaway stars are older than the estimated age of R136.... Read More

Flyby of JWST at L2 Point

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the next of NASA’s Great Observatories; following in the line of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. JWST combines qualities of two of its predecessors, observing in infrared light, like Spitzer, with fine resolution, like Hubble.... Read More

Moon Shadows on Saturn

Saturn’s wide, but very thin, rings are tilted with respect to its plane of orbit around the Sun. Once every 15 years, the rings are edge-on (perpendicular) to the Sun. During those times, some of Saturn’s moons can cast shadows across the rings.... Read More