Hubble Returns to 'Old Friends' for 25th Anniversary

25 years !
Wow doesn't time fly when you're having fun.
To mark the anniversary the team decided to revisit a couple of their most famous photo locations.

First up the iconic "Pillars of Creation"


Secondly the new Andromeda Galaxy image which was made up of a composite of 13,000 shots.


I wonder how many beings are looking at pictures of our Galaxy with the same sense of awe.

The new representation, thanks to multiple upgrades to Hubble's systems, has a wider angle and twice the resolution.
It also allows astronomers like Dr Scowen to see what has changed in 20 years - even though any changes actually took place 7,000 years ago because of the intervening distance.

Although he and his colleagues have only been able to look at the pictures for a few weeks, Dr Scowen noted that, "yes, some things have moved" - including the tips of jets bursting from the side of the five light-year-tall pillars.
Those jets become "signposts, pointing to where stars were made" he said.

The second impressive new release is known as the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury or PHAT.
It depicts the Andromeda Galaxy, our Milky Way's big neighbour, at a record-breaking level of detail.
Prof Julianne Dalcanton from the University of Washington explained that Andromeda was probably bigger than the Milky Way, and takes up more of the sky than the Moon.

It took 39 months to acquire the thousands of images, in three different wavelengths of light, which together show a large sweep of the pancake-shaped galaxy some two million light-years away.
Importantly, they have sharp enough resolution to individually resolve many of the 100 million stars captured within the view.
"The picture looks pretty nice, but the glory of it is being able to zoom in," Prof Dalcanton said.

As well as individual stars, the vast image promises a treasure trove of dust clouds, star clusters, star-forming regions and more - for astronomers to mine for insights into how galaxies form and change.
www.bbc.co.uk...

These images still blow my mind, maybe even more, than they did 25 yrs ago.
It is hard for me to wrap my imagination around the infinite vastness.
I still love watching the stars at night for the same reason.
Thanks for the pics.

a reply to: stosh64

We're fortunate to live in a time where we get to see images like this of Stars and Galaxies , get to follow the progress of robots on other worlds from the comfort of our own homes and watch as little launders get lost on comets , I think sometimes we forget that we live in the future now and just how much things have changed in the last 20 or 30 years , it is a scientifically exciting time.

Oh. I thought the NRO wanted their mirrors back or something.

Are their any differences in the before and now pics?.
I guess no but?.

a reply to: boymonkey74

Here's the original Pillars of Creation for comparison.
www.sun.org...

originally posted by: boymonkey74
Are their any differences in the before and now pics?.
I guess no but?.

there is change, but i doubt it is noticeable after only 25 years.

Here's the zoomable version of the new Andromeda Galaxy PHAT image.
hubblesite.org...

And zoomable image of the 'Pillars of Creation'.
hubblesite.org...

Those really are amazing photos.

a reply to: gortex