Hubble Peers Deeply into Nearby Debris Disk

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The conventional wisdom is that planets coagulate inside a vast disk of gas and dust encircling newborn stars. But the details of the process are not well understood because it takes millions of years to happen as the disk undergoes numerous changes until it finally dissipates.

The Hubble Space Telescope has looked closely at one of those disks around a nearby star and found an unexpected and surprising feature.

Please join +Tony Darnell Dr.+Carol Christian and +Scott Lewis  as they delve into these new observations with the team of astronomers who made them.

#hubble #exoplanets #Hubble25 #space #astronomy

Dissolve of the Eagle Nebula ‘Pillars of Creation’ (UVIS to IR)

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Hubble’s iconic 1995 image of the ‘Pillars of Creation’ dissolves into the 2015 version; revealing greater detail and a much wider view. Hubble’s infrared view shows these structures in new light — as cold hydrogen and dust silhouetted against a myriad of background stars.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Acknowledgment: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University)

3-D Flyover Visualization of Veil Nebula

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This 3-D visualization flies across a small portion of the Veil Nebula as photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. This region is a small part of a huge expanding remnant from a star that exploded many thousands of years ago. Hubble resolves tangled rope-like filaments of glowing gases. The 3-D model has been created for illustrative purposes and shows that that the giant bubble of gas has a thin, rippled surface. It also highlights that the emission from different chemical elements arises from different layers of gas within the nebula. In the imagery, emission from hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen are shown in red, green, and blue, respectively.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and F. Summers, G. Bacon, Z. Levay, and L. Frattare (Viz 3D Team, STScI)

Acknowledgment: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)