Space Universe🌌

Black holes are often described as the monsters of the universe – tearing apart stars, consuming anything that comes too close, and holding light captive. But evidence from Hubble shows a black hole in a new light: fostering, rather than suppressing, star formation. Hubble observations of the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10 clearly show a gas outflow stretching from the black hole to a bright starbirth region, kind of like an umbilical cord, triggering the already dense cloud into forming clusters of stars. The outflow was moving at about 1 million miles per hour, slamming into the dense gas like a garden hose hitting a pile of dirt and spreading out. Newborn star clusters dot the path of the outflow's spread, their ages also calculated by Hubble.

This cosmic "lightsaber" is actually a Herbig-Haro object named HH111. A Herbig-Haro object forms when hot gas ejected by a newborn star collides with gas and dust around it at hundreds of miles per second: https://go.nasa.gov/3vI8eTG

In this new sonification of the black hole in galaxy M87, three different sets of observations are represented as sound. Hubble’s visible light image is in the middle, with X-rays from nasa chandra xray on top and radio waves from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array on the bottom. The bright region on the left is where M87’s black hole is found, and the streak coming out of it is a jet produced by material falling onto the black hole. Each wavelength of light is represented with a different range of audible tones. Radio waves are mapped to the lowest tones, Hubble’s data to medium tones, and X-rays detected by Chandra to the highest tones.

Hubble spotted a stellar survivor! ⭐️ The discovery of a companion star previously hidden in the glare of its partner's supernova explosion is a first for a particular type of supernova – one in which the star was stripped of its entire outer gas envelope before exploding!

Over the course of five servicing missions, Hubble’s astronauts set the telescope up for success. Thanks to their hard work, Hubble's observations have changed our understanding of the universe.

Did you know that the black hole at the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy has a leak? This supermassive black hole, with a mass of 4.1 million Suns, looks like it still has the remnants of a blowtorch-like jet dating back several thousand years. While Hubble hasn't photographed the jet, it has helped find evidence that it is still pushing feebly into a huge hydrogen cloud and then splattering, like the narrow stream from a hose aimed into a pile of sand. Image credits: NASA, ESA, and Gerald Cecil (UNC-Chapel Hill); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Double take! 🤩 This image of M99 features data from two sets of observations made to study two entirely different astronomical phenomena. The first set of observations aimed to explore a gap between two different varieties of cosmic explosions, novae and supernovae, whereas the second set was part of a larger Hubble project to map the connections between young stars and the clouds of cold gas from which they form. Roughly 42 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices, M99 is known as a “grand design” spiral galaxy because of its well-defined and prominent spiral arms.

That's a wrap on Black Hole Week! And since it's Flashback Friday, take a look at these iconic Hubble images that captured disks of dust fueling black holes at the centers of galaxies. Hubble and other NASA missions continue to teach us more about these fascinating cosmic objects.

Hubble’s going galactic! 💫 Starting Monday, join us for #GalaxiesGalore! For the next few weeks, we’ll share never-before-seen Hubble galaxy images and explore the science behind these cosmic neighborhoods.

We have a cosmic bouquet for you! This image of the “Sunflower Galaxy” (M63) is a beautiful view from 27 million light-years away.

Now presenting, our first new Galaxies Galore Hubble image! Nicknamed the Needle’s Eye Galaxy, NGC 247 is a spectacular dwarf spiral galaxy about 11 million light-years away from us. This image zooms into the very edge of the galaxy. Below the edge of the galaxy’s disk, smaller and more distant galaxies are visible, as well as a very bright foreground star that lies between us and NGC 247.