Hubble Telescope is Back: Fantastic New Images Released

SOURCE NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is back in action after its most recent upgrade, with a spectacular array of new images showing off the telescope's new capabilities.

Hubble's new instruments, including the Wide Field Camera 3, a new super-sensitive spectrograph, were installed on the 19-year-old telescope by shuttle astronauts during a 13-day service mission in May. The mission, which was initially canceled in 2004 due to safety concerns after the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster, also revived two instruments — Hubble's main ACS and a versatile imaging spectrograph — that were never designed to be fixed in space

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A beautiful view of a star in its death throes is featured in a gallery of images sent back by the Hubble Space Telescope after its final shuttle servicing mission in May 2009. The planetary nebula NGC 6302, better known as the Butterfly Nebula or the Bug Nebula, is about 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. The features that look like dainty butterfly wings are actually roiling cauldrons of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit, blasted away from a dying star bigger than the sun. This picture was taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3.

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Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 captured this panoramic view of a colorful assortment of 100,000 stars residing in the crowded core of the globular cluster Omega Centauri. The full cluster, which lies about 16,000 light-years from Earth, boasts nearly 10 million stars. The stars in Omega Centauri are between 10 billion and 12 billion years old.

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A clash involving members of the famous galaxy group known as Stephan's Quintet reveals an assortment of stars across a wide color range, from young, blue stars to aging, red stars. The new image of the grouping was taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. It's a bit of a misnomer to call this group a "quintet." Studies have shown that the galaxy NGC 7320, at upper left, is actually in the foreground, about seven times closer to Earth than the rest of the group.

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Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 took this picture of a "pillar of creation" in the Carina Nebula, about 7,500 light-years away in the constellation Carina. Clouds of gas and dust conceal the cradles of newborn stars.

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A dark smudge serves as the telltale sign of a cosmic collision in this picture of Jupiter, taken on July 23 by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. Scientists believe the smudge was caused by debris from a comet or asteroid that plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere and disintegrated.

NASA Images
MSNBC: Hubble’s latest, greatest views revealed

[edit on 9-9-2009 by tmayhew01]

I was just writing a thread on this and you had beat me to it!

Here's a set of the first 4 photos

Taken from physorg.com

Its really good to see HST working again, it truly is an amazing achievement.

I literally get tears in my eyes when I view the beauty of the universe! These images are just so amazing and so clear! My fondest hope is after this life we get a nice fly by of all the sites of the universe. If not I want to come back next time as a part of an alien race that travels out in all that so I can see for myself.

One can only hope that our ability to see into the stars and travel there is not totally ruined by the ever growing deficit.

I'm just in awe of the pictures, especially that one of Omega Centauri, though I have to say the pictures look a little enhanced with more brightness and contrast. Did they install photoshop on hubble?... but anyhoo great stuff....

reply to post by imitator


To my knowledge these are the first hand images from NASA. I do know that some of the larger pictures are a compilation of several images similar to the Hubble Deep Field image. I don't have much expertise in analyzing such images, perhaps somebody here at ATS can answer this question better.

But I love to see these new images from space, their clarity and content is phenomenal! I can only image what is truly out there in the vastness of space. Hopefully during our lifetime more advanced imaging satellites will be constructed to provide even deeper images of space... and possibly inhabitable planets such as Earth...

I absolutely love Hubble, our personal eye on the universe. For me it gives perspective on how small, yet connected we are the the rest of the universe. Sometimes I am completely speechless at some of the photos that come back. I was really upset when they were talking about shutting it down a few years ago. I it is still a possibility, but at least we still have a couple of more years! (*fingers crossed*)

Here is a video I just found on google in reference to the new videos. Interesting nonetheless, hopefully they will be releasing more images soon! fascinating stuff...

Here are the photos (first 4) in hi resolution about 40mb
Hubble new pics

reply to post by basilray


The link doesn't appear to be working for me. Do you have the original website that posted the link to the high def pictures. Would be very interesting to get a closer look at the 4th image. Just amazing, isn't it?

reply to post by tmayhew01


Link works for me, but at 40 megs it did hesitate a few seconds before starting to load.

http ://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2009-25-a-full_jpg.jpg

(added a space after the http so you can backtrack the link, if you wish)

Originally posted by refuse_orders
I was just writing a thread on this and you had beat me to it!

Here's a set of the first 4 photos

Taken from physorg.com

Its really good to see HST working again, it truly is an amazing achievement.

Every time I see images like this you JUST CAN NOT DENY that we are not alone.....

Even without pictures/videos of unexplainable UFO's there just no mathematically way we are ALONE!!!

I see companies like NASA a stepping stone for all of humanity, along with other space agencies.

Anything that helps technology out.