Film & Animation

NGC 2207: Colliding Galaxies [Ultra HD]

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NGC 2207 is a pair of colliding spiral galaxies. Their bright central nuclei resemble a striking set of eyes. In visible light, trails of stars and gas trace out spiral arms, stretched by the tidal pull between the galaxies. When seen in infrared light (IR), the glow of warm dust appears. This dust is the raw material for the creation of new stars and planets. Complementary to the IR, the X-ray view reveals areas of active star formation and the birth of super star clusters. Though individual stars are too far apart to collide, the material between the stars merges to create high-density pockets of gas. These regions gravitationally collapse to trigger a firestorm of starbirth. The galaxy collision will go on for several millions of years, leaving the galaxies completely altered in terms of their shapes.

Video Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Optical image: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI)
X-ray image: NASA/CXC/SAO/S. Mineo et al
Infrared image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Sculpture Garden of Gas and Dust: Core of the Lagoon Nebula

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This video zooms into the core of a rich star-birth region called the Lagoon Nebula, located in the constellation Sagittarius in the direction of our Milky Way galaxy’s central bulge. The sequence then dissolves to a series of imagined three-dimensional flights past striking structures of this gaseous landscape. Viewers examine dark, dusty clouds silhouetted against a colorful background of luminous gas that has been heated by a massive star. Pillars of dense gas and bow shocks around newborn stars are shaped by the strong winds from the brightest stars. The intense high-energy emission from these same stars creates the glowing ridges of gas in ionization fronts. These features are some of the highlights of this vibrant region where new stars and planets are born.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon, D. Player, J. DePasquale, F. Summers, and Z. Levay (STScI)
Music: J. DePasquale
Acknowledgement: A. Fujii, Digitized Sky Survey, ESO/VPHAS, and R. Crisp

Publication: April 19, 2018

HH 901: Pillars in the Carina Nebula [Ultra HD]

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Herbig Haro 901 is an immense pillar of gas and dust inside the Carina Nebula, a huge star-forming region in our galaxy. The pillar is several light-years tall and contains a few massive young stars. They shoot out powerful jets that emerge from the cloud. In some cases, the jets create bow-shock patterns similar to the effects of a ship plowing through the ocean. In the visible-light view, very few stars can be seen because the gas and dust block starlight. But in the infrared view, stars become visible and numerous. The visible-light colors emerge from the glow of different gases: oxygen (blue), hydrogen/nitrogen (green), and sulfur (red). The Carina Nebula is approximately 7,500 light years from Earth.

Video: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)

The Plumes of Europa: Ice, Water, Life?

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The Plumes of Europa: Ice, Water, Life?
Susana Deustua, Space Telescope Science Institute

Europa is one of the four moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo in 1610. Four hundred years later, the Voyager and Galileo space probes took stunning images of Europa, revealing an icy surface crisscrossed by linear fractures. Four years ago, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope found evidence for plumes of water emerging from Europa’s icy surface. Ultraviolet spectroscopy detected emission indicative of water, and ultraviolet imaging of Europa as it transits Jupiter showed absorption patches suggestive of plumes. If there is liquid water on Europa, will future missions to Europa find evidence of life?

Host: Dr. Frank Summers

Recorded live on Tuesday, April 3 at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.

For more information: http://hubble.stsci.edu/about_us/public_talks/

Tonight’s Sky: April 2018

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The April night sky is full of celestial wonders: with Venus in the early evening, the double-star Mizar and Alcor at night, and Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter in the morning—topped off with the Lyrid meteor shower on April 22.

Find out more about what you can see from your backyard, local park, or rooftop deck by viewing our monthly program Tonight’s Sky: http://hubblesite.org/videos/science

Mapping the United Federation of Planets: An Astronomer’s Guide to the Galaxy

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Mapping the United Federation of Planets: An Astronomer’s Guide to the Galaxy
Mia Bovill, Space Telescope Science Institute

How big is Star Trek’s United Federation of Planets? How far did the various starship captains travel? Where exactly are the Klingons? To answer these questions, we need to leave the future spacefaring of the Enterprise behind and ask questions of astronomers in the here and now of 21st century Earth. Where is the Earth located within our Milky Way? What are the overall shape and scale of the galaxy? And just how can we decipher the Milky Way’s features when we are stuck at one location inside it? Come for the Star Trek, and stay to hear the centuries long, ongoing, and arduous tale of how a “minor bipedal species” is mapping the Milky Way.

Host: Dr. Frank Summers

Recorded live on Tuesday, March 6, 2018 at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, USA

For more information: http://hubblesite.org/about_us/public-talks.shtml