@nasahubble

It’s #HubbleFriday time! ⏰ This week, take in the view of CGCG 396-2, an unusual multi-armed galaxy merger that’s about 520 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Orion. Discover more at the link in our bio! Image credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Keel #NASA #Hubble #Friday #galaxy #space #science #astronomy #universe #cosmos

Hundreds of thousands of stars call this cluster home! 🏠 Known as M15, this is a globular cluster – a roughly spherical grouping of stars bound together by gravity, with most of the stars concentrated at the cluster’s center. M15 is located in the constellation Pegasus, around 33,600 light-years from Earth! Music credit: “Enlightening,” Matthew James Jude Anderson [PRS], Ninja Tune Production Music, Universal Production Music #NASA #Hubble #stars #space #science #universe #astronomy #telescope #cosmos #astrophotography

About 2,000 light-years away in the constellation Vela, the spectacular Southern Ring Nebula resides. In this #HubbleClassic image, a dying star ejects a cloud of gas expanding outwards at nine miles per second. If you look closely near the nebula’s center, there are actually two stars: a bright one, and a much fainter companion just above it to the right. That fainter star is the one ejecting this nebula! It’s smaller than our Sun, but extremely hot, and the flood of ultraviolet radiation from its surface makes the surrounding gases glow through fluorescence. The other brighter star is in an earlier stage of stellar evolution, but will probably eject its own nebula later on. Image credits: The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA) #NASA #Hubble #classic #stars #nebula #space #science #astronomy #universe

We’re ONE WEEK away from @NASAWebb’s first images! 🥳 Another thing to get excited about: Within Webb’s first year of operations, it will provide infrared-light images of galaxies to help us better understand the life cycles of stars. Telescopes including Hubble have provided detailed observations of galaxies, like this image of NGC 3351. Webb will identify where stars are forming behind dust and investigate the earliest stages of star formation in this galaxy. Image credits: Science: NASA, ESA, ESO-Chile, ALMA, NAOJ, NRAO; image processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) #NASA #Hubble #NASAWebb #UnfoldTheUniverse #Webb #galaxy #space #astronomy #stars #cosmos

Happy #FourthOfJuly! 🇺🇸 Here’s a red, white, and blue Hubble view of DEM L249, showing stars and the aftermath of a supernova. Image credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Y. Chu #NASA #Hubble #IndependenceDay #4thOfJuly #supernova #stars #space #science #astronomy

A cosmic treasure trove! ✨ This week’s #HubbleFriday image shows the sparkling globular cluster NGC 6569. Globular clusters are roughly spherical groups of stars bound together by gravity, and they can contain tens of thousands to millions of stars. Discover more at the link in our bio! Image credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Cohen #NASA #Hubble #Friday #stars #space #science #astronomy #cosmos #universe

This Hubble image contains thousands of galaxies. But it also contains some cosmic photobombers! The streaks you see here are actually the trails of asteroids. They appear curved due to something called parallax; as Hubble orbits around Earth, an asteroid will look like it moves along an arc in comparison to much more distant background stars and galaxies. This effect is kind of like what you see from a moving car, when trees by the side of the road appear to be passing by faster than background objects that are faraway. Image Credits: NASA, ESA, and B. Sunnquist and J. Mack (STScI) #AsteroidDay #NASA #Hubble #asteroid #space #science #astronomy #universe #cosmos #telescope

📚 We’ve got the perfect addition for your summer reading list! “Hubble Focus: Strange New Worlds” takes you on a journey to planets that orbit stars beyond our own Sun, known as exoplanets. At the time of Hubble’s launch, no exoplanets had yet been discovered. Now we know of over 5,000! Download this new e-book for free at the link in our bio. This artist’s illustration shows what the view might look like from the surface of TRAPPIST-1f – an Earth-sized planet orbiting a star about 40 light-years from Earth. Art credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech #NASA #Hubble #book #bookstagram #exoplanet #planet #free #reading #science #astronomy #universe

About 4,300 light-years away, the remains of a Sun-like star glow! This #HubbleClassic image captures the nebula NGC 2371. The remnant star visible at its center is the super-hot core of the former red giant, now stripped of its outer layers. Image credits: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) #NASA #Hubble #classic #nebula #space #science #astronomy #telescope #cosmos

This spectacular Hubble view captures the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy! ❤️ Within it reside both young and old stars zipping around at different speeds, offering clues about our galaxy’s formation. Once it begins science operations next month, @NASAWebb will join Hubble in studying our galaxy’s archaeology. Image credits: NASA, ESA, Tom M. Brown #NASA #Hubble #NASAWebb #UnfoldTheUniverse #Webb #JWST #galaxy #space #stars #astronomy

Not just one, but a whole cluster of galaxies shines in this week’s #HubbleFriday image! 😵‍💫 The streaks of light are actually images of even more distant galaxies, and are the result of an astrophysical phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. This occurs when the gravity of a massive cosmic object (like a galaxy cluster!) is so strong it affects the path of light passing through it. Find out more at the link in our bio! Image credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, H. Ebeling; Acknowledgment: L. Shatz #NASA #Hubble #Friday #galaxy #space #science #cosmos #universe #astronomy

It’s a planet parade! 🪐 Before sunrise, you can catch a naked-eye glimpse of planets (and our Moon!) “lined up” in the sky. But if you aren’t a morning person, Hubble’s got you covered with planetary views! Swipe through to see of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and Venus! #NASA #Hubble #planet #Venus #Mars #Moon #Jupiter #Saturn #space #science

Space mice! 🐁 This colliding pair of spiral galaxies is nicknamed “The Mice” because of the long tails of stars and gas emanating from each galaxy. Otherwise called NGC 4676, this pair will eventually merge into a single giant galaxy. NGC 4676 is located about 300 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. Music credit: “Ice Peaks,” Thomas Daniel Bellingham [PRS], Ninja Tune Production Music, Universal Production Music #NASA #Hubble #space #galaxy #stars #astronomy #universe #cosmos #mice #telescope

Ever wondered what the music of the spheres would sound like? 🎵 Hubble brings us cosmic sights, but these astronomical marvels can be experienced through sound when scientists assign pitch and volume to an image’s data. Take this sonification of the star cluster Caldwell 73, for example. As the radar scans around in this sonification, the radius of the stars is mapped to pitch, so stars farther from the center are higher pitched. The entire image is converted to the sound of a choir, while the orange and red stars are represented by a marimba, and the blue stars are represented by a glockenspiel. No sound can travel in space, but sonifications provide a new way of experiencing and conceptualizing data. Happy #WorldMusicDay! Sonification credits: NASA/ESA/G. Piotto; Processing: Gladys Kober; Sonification: SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida) #NASA #Hubble #MusicDay #music #stars #space #science #astronomy #universe

This #HubbleClassic view shows NGC 6090, a pair of spiral galaxies with overlapping central regions and two long tidal tails made of material ripped out of the galaxies by gravitational interactions. The two visible cores are approximately 10,000 light-years apart! NGC 6090 is about 400 million light-years away in the constellation Draco. Image credits: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University), and G. Ostlin (Stockholm University) #NASA #Hubble #classic #galaxy #space #science #astronomy #universe #cosmos