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| Pandora's Cluster - A galactic crash investigation [heic1111] |
| A team of scientists has studied the galaxy cluster Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora's Cluster. They have pieced together the cluster's complex and violent history using telescopes in space and on the ground, including the Hubble Space Telescope and ESO's Very Large Telescope. Abell 2744 seems to be the result of a simultaneous pile-up of at least four separate galaxy clusters and this complex collision has produced strange effects that have never been seen together before. |
| Date: 22 Jun 2011 |
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| Spectacular Hubble View of Centaurus A [heic1110] |
| The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a close-up view of the galaxy Centaurus A. Hubble's out-of-this-world location and world-class Wide Field Camera 3 instrument reveal a dramatic picture of a dynamic galaxy in flux. |
| Date: 16 Jun 2011 |
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| Galaxy NGC 4214: A star formation laboratory [heic1109] |
| Hubble's newest camera has taken an image of galaxy NGC 4214. This galaxy glows brightly with young stars and gas clouds, and is an ideal laboratory to research star formation and evolution. |
| Date: 12 May 2011 |
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| Two views of a lopsided galaxy [heic1108] |
| The Meathook Galaxy, or NGC 2442, has a dramatically lopsided shape. One spiral arm is tightly folded in on itself and host to a recent supernova, while the other, dotted with recent star formation, extends far out from the nucleus. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope have captured two contrasting views of this asymmetric spiral galaxy. |
| Date: 04 May 2011 |
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| A galactic rose highlights Hubble's 21st anniversary [heic1107] |
| In celebration of the 21st anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's deployment into space, astronomers pointed Hubble at an especially photogenic group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. |
| Date: 20 Apr 2011 |
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| First galaxies were born much earlier than expected [heic1106] |
| Using the amplifying power of a cosmic gravitational lens, astronomers have discovered a distant galaxy whose stars were born unexpectedly early in cosmic history. This result sheds new light on the formation of the first galaxies, as well as on the early evolution of the Universe. |
| Date: 12 Apr 2011 |
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| Arachnophobes beware: Hubble snaps close-up of the Tarantula [heic1105] |
| The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced an outstanding image of part of the famous Tarantula Nebula, a vast star-forming cloud of gas and dust in our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. In this picture, we see a close-up of the Tarantula's central region, glowing brightly with ionised gases and young stars. |
| Date: 15 Mar 2011 |
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| Flocculent spiral NGC 2841 [heic1104] |
| The galaxy NGC 2841 - shown here in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, taken with the space observatory's newest instrument, the Wide Field Camera 3 - currently has a relatively low star formation rate compared to other spirals. It is one of several nearby galaxies that have been specifically chosen for a new study in which a pick 'n' mix of different stellar nursery environments and birth rates are being observed. |
| Date: 17 Feb 2011 |
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| Hubble finds a new contender for galaxy distance record [heic1103] |
| Pushing the Hubble Space Telescope to the limit of its technical ability, an international collaboration of astronomers have found what is likely to be the most distant and ancient galaxy ever seen, whose light has taken 13.2 billion years to reach us (a redshift of around 10). |
| Date: 26 Jan 2011 |
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| Hubble Zooms in on a Space Oddity [heic1102] |
| A strange, glowing green cloud of gas that has mystified astronomers since its discovery in 2007 has been studied by Hubble. The cloud of gas is lit up by the bright light of a nearby quasar, and shows signs of ongoing star formation. |
| Date: 10 Jan 2011 |
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| Identity parade clears cosmic collisions of the suspicion of promoting black hole growth [heic1101] |
| What happens when galaxies crash together? For years, these cosmic collisions have been blamed for triggering violent outbursts at the hearts of galaxies. Now, a remarkable piece of detective work has given a verdict: galactic mergers do not usually whet the appetite of the black holes that power these active galactic nuclei, meaning other, less dramatic phenomena are responsible. |
| Date: 05 Jan 2011 |
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| Space Telescope European Co-ordinating Facility to close after 26 successful years [heic1019] |
| The Space Telescope European Co-ordinating Facility, a unique collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Southern Observatory, will close on 31 December 2010 after 26 years. ESA's continuing partnership with NASA on the Hubble mission ensures that European astronomers will continue to have access to observing time. |
| Date: 17 Dec 2010 |
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| Hubble spots a celestial bauble [heic1018] |
| Hubble has spotted a festive bauble of gas in our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. Formed in the aftermath of a supernova explosion that took place four centuries ago, this sphere of gas has been snapped in a series of observations made between 2006 and 2010. |
| Date: 14 Dec 2010 |
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| Europe maintains its presence on the final frontier |
| ESA has decided to extend the productive lives of 11 of its operating space science missions. This will enable ESA's world-class science missions to continue returning pioneering results until at least 2014. |
| Date: 22 Nov 2010 |
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| Hubble data used to look 10 000 years into the future [heic1017] |
| Astronomers are used to looking millions of years into the past. Now scientists have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to look thousands of years into the future. Looking at the heart of Omega Centauri, a globular cluster in the Milky Way, they have calculated how the stars there will move over the next 10 000 years. |
| Date: 26 Oct 2010 |
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| Hubble finds that a bizarre X-shaped intruder is linked to an unseen asteroid collision [heic1016] |
| An international team of astronomers has observed what happens after asteroids crash together. Using Hubble to study the aftermath of one such collision over five months, they watched a strange, comet-like debris trail slowly evolve as the collision site orbited the Sun. This research gives clues about how asteroids behave when they collide, and how the fall-out from these impacts contributes to the dust that pervades the Solar System. |
| Date: 13 Oct 2010 |
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| Hubble and Rosetta unmask nature of recent asteroid wreck |
| High-resolution images from the Hubble Space Telescope and a rare view obtained, from a unique perspective, by the Rosetta spacecraft provide a comprehensive picture of P/2010 A2, a puzzling body in the asteroid main belt. Although similar in appearance to a comet, this object and its diffuse trail have been exposed as the remnant of an asteroid crash that happened only one and a half years ago. These observations, reported in the 14 October issue of Nature, provide the first direct evidence for a recent collision in the asteroid belt. |
| Date: 13 Oct 2010 |
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| Breaking waves in the stellar lagoon [heic1015] |
| A spectacular new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the heart of the Lagoon Nebula. Seen as a massive cloud of glowing dust and gas, bombarded by the energetic radiation of new stars, this placid name hides a dramatic reality. |
| Date: 22 Sep 2010 |
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| Astronomers take a step towards revealing the Universe's biggest mystery [heic1014] |
| An international team of astronomers using gravitational lensing observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken an important step forward in the quest to solve the riddle of dark energy, a phenomenon which
mysteriously appears to power the Universe's accelerating expansion. Their results appear in the 20 August 2010 issue of the journal Science. |
| Date: 19 Aug 2010 |
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| NGC 4696: a cosmic question mark [heic1013] |
| Curling around itself like a question mark, the unusual looking galaxy NGC 4696 itself begs many questions. Why is it such a strange shape? What are the odd, capillary-like filaments that stretch out of it? And what is the role of a large black hole in explaining its decidedly odd appearance? |
| Date: 12 Aug 2010 |
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