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This Thursday (23) is the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble telescope. Located in low Earth orbit, approximately 600 km from Earth, the team revolutionized astronomy with the aim of continuously exploring the depths of the universe, from neighboring galaxies to cosmic phenomena and billions of light years.
Hubble was essential, for example, to confirm the scientific hypothesis about the existence of black holes at the heart of galaxies. The telescope has also contributed to scientists observing distant supernovae and finding evidence that the universe may be expanding at an accelerated rate.
Developed from a partnership between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), the equipment was designed during the 1970s and 1980s. However, the scientific use of the telescope is the responsibility of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSI) , located at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, United States. The organization is linked to a group of 33 North American universities that form the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA).
In 2021, NASA intends to launch the James Webb Telescope, which will be complementary to Hubble in deep space observation. It’s also worth remembering that the space agency created a commemorative page where the user reports the month and day of his birth and can verify an image that the telescope transmitted the same day.
Amazing photos
Science Focus magazine took advantage of the commemorative date to separate eight iconic images captured by Hubble since the 1990s. The figures represent different astronomical phenomena, such as the collision of galaxies, jets of stellar gases and the activity of black holes.
Vbulbous
The first image represents the “Vu Nebula”. This phenomenon is made up of colored gases, called supernova remnants, that result from the explosion of stars. Scientists estimate that the explosion occurred about 8,000 years ago and that the nebula is 110 light years from Earth. The photo was captured by Hubble in 1997, but reached mission systems only in 2015.
Pismis 24
The Galaxy Pismis 24 is made up of an agglomeration of stars in the NGC 6357 nebula. The Hubble telescope was able to capture images through dense cosmic dust and was also able to estimate the mass of the star Pismis 24-1, the main star of this galaxy. According to the scientists’ prediction, the star has a mass up to 100 times greater than that of the Sun.
Bubble nebula
NGC 7635, also known as the Bubble Nebula, is made up of stellar winds from a star 45 times the mass of the Sun. The gas travels at a speed of 6.5 million kilometers per hour. As the nebula expands, the gas fills the space between the stars and causes shock waves. This phenomenon is responsible for attributing the bright appearance of the bubble that characterizes the nebula.
Herbig-Haro Jet
In the image above, Hubble captured a Herbig-Haro jet. When a star forms, it usually has a gas disk around it. The interactions between this disk and the star’s magnetic field cause the gas to be expelled at incredibly high speeds in the cosmic medium. The shock wave resulting from this process causes the bright jet that is represented in the photo.
NGC 5033
NGC corresponds to a spiral galaxy of approximately 100 thousand light years in diameter. Its nucleus is occupied by a supermassive black hole, with a mass at least 10 million times greater than that of the Sun. This black hole is surrounded by a rotating disk of gas and dust, which moves rapidly to the point of producing brightness. that you see in the image.
Fomalhaut
According to experts heard by Science Focus, Hubble is not a suitable instrument to identify exoplanets. Still, the telescope has played a key role in discovering planets outside our solar system.
Hubble has identified, for example, an exoplanet in the orbit of the star Fomalhaut, which in turn is surrounded by a vast ring of dust up to 20 billion kilometers in diameter.
These rings are created by planets that carry dust to a specific orbit. In an attempt to trace this world, Hubble has repeatedly captured images of the system for several years. When comparing the images, astronomers found a bright spot slowly moving around the disk. For scientists, this point shapes a planet.
Gravitational lenses
The previous figure corresponds to a group of galaxies. You can see that some of these galaxies look like curved lines, rather than just bright dots. This is due to a phenomenon called a gravitational lens.
The gigantic mass of the group of galaxies distorts space-time, to the point that light “doubles” as it travels through the universe. This bending of light acts as a lens to enlarge the image of galaxies. According to Science Focus, this process is essential for the study of dark matter.
Galaxy collision
The last image shows two galaxies that passed close to each other at a sufficient distance to cause collisions between their ends. When this happens, the chaos generated by the collision between the two worlds creates appropriate cosmic conditions for the birth of new stars. In the photo, Hubble cameras were able to identify the formation of young stars, represented by the agglomerations of blue dots in the deformed rings of galaxies.
Source: Science approach
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