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A new image of the bulge at the center of a distant spiral galaxy, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is giving astronomers insight into how these galactic paunches form. The image of NGC 4710 is part of a survey that astronomers have conducted to learn more about the formation of bulges, which are a substantial component of most spiral galaxies. When targeting spiral galaxy bulges, astronomers often seek edge-on galaxies, as their bulges are more easily distinguishable from the disc. The detailed edge-on view of NGC 4710, taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, shows the galaxy's bulge in...

Just heard on FoxNews. Former Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu (shoo) is headed for a lengthy prison sentence after his conviction for violating campaign finance laws. Story still developing.

As America prepares to embark upon a new era of human space exploration, President Obama has commissioned a review of the nation’s human space flight plans. Known as the Augustine Committee, this panel has the important charter of evaluating the current NASA plan... Exploration must be recognized as a national imperative that sustains U.S. leadership in space; a significant increase in human space-flight safety should be accomplished under government leadership; we must leave low Earth orbit and explore destinations beyond; and sustaining robust funding and staying the course are imperative... ...Members of the committee presented their preliminary findings to NASA...

The Butterfly Nebula from Upgraded Hubble Explanation: The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for flowers or insects, and NGC 6302 is no exception. With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees C, the central star of this particular planetary nebula is exceptionally hot though -- shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. Above is a dramatically detailed close-up of the dying star's nebula recorded by the newly upgraded Hubble Space Telescope. Cutting across a bright cavity of ionized gas, the dust torus surrounding...

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is back in business, ready to uncover new worlds, peer ever deeper into space, and even map the invisible backbone of the universe. The first snapshots from the refurbished Hubble showcase the 19-year-old telescope's new vision. Topping the list of exciting new views are colorful multi-wavelength pictures of far-flung galaxies, a densely packed star cluster, an eerie "pillar of creation," and a "butterfly" nebula. With its new imaging camera, Hubble can view galaxies, star clusters, and other objects across a wide swath of the electromagnetic spectrum, from ultraviolet to near-infrared light. A new spectrograph slices across...

WASHINGTON – A refurbished Hubble Space Telescope is showing Earth the sharpest photos yet of cosmic beauty, complete with heavenly glows. NASA on Wednesday unveiled the first deep space photos taken by Hubble since its billion dollar repair mission last spring. That work included installing two new cameras, other science instruments and replacing broken parts. The images of galaxies and nebulas are sharper than previous photos taken of the same places by Hubble before the upgrade. Some of the colorful images have brilliant glows of light that give them halos that to some people can appear heavenly.

The so-called Station Fire, which now covers more than 120,000 Southern California acres and is burning largely uncontained, continues to threaten the century-old Mount Wilson Observatory, home to astronomer Edwin Hubble at the time he made his landmark observations of the universe's expansion. The observatory is currently unmanned due to the fire threat and the attending smoke, but a webcam atop Mount Wilson's 150-foot solar tower has provided observatory managers and concerned observers with a view from the scene. At 12:55 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time) the camera showed a great deal of smoke but no flames. ...According to the Los...

The Space Shuttle Atlantis crew has completed its equipment replacements and repairs of the Hubble Space Telescope. Tomorrow they will release the Hubble back into open space.

John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel had trouble removing the old camera from the telescope because a bolt was stuck. They fetched extra tools, but none seemed to work. Finally, Mission Control urged the astronauts to use as much force as possible, even though there was a risk the bolt might break. If that had happened, the old camera would be stuck inside, leaving no room for its souped-up replacement. "OK, here we go," Feustel said. "I think I've got it. It turned. It definitely turned." And then: "Woo-hoo, it's moving out!"

Space shuttle Atlantis has reached the Hubble telescope, orbiting at a height of 560km (350 miles) over the Earth. The shuttle crew completed a delicate dance of manoeuvres intended to align Atlantis' robotic arm with the telescope during their approach. The arm was used to get hold of Hubble and draw it into the shuttle's bay. At 1912 BST, Nasa controllers confirmed that the telescope had been safely berthed and secured atop a platform in Atlantis' payload bay. Five spacewalks beginning on Thursday will upgrade and repair the telescope, which has suffered from recent equipment failures. On the final approach,...

The Hubble Space Telescope's legendary Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 has produced one of its last images, a gorgeous shot of a planetary nebula. The nebula, a colorful cloud of gas and dust named Kohoutek 4-55 (or K 4-55), has an eye that appears to be looking right back at Hubble. The image was taken May 4 and released today. Monday, NASA aims to send the space shuttle Atlantis to Hubble, where astronauts will replace the camera with the Wide Field Camera 3, among other upgrades and fix-it projects.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Hubble space telescope, the object of NASA's fifth and last servicing mission next week, is a veritable time machine that has revolutionized humankind's vision and comprehension of the universe. Put into orbit at an altitude of 600 kilometers (360 miles) by the shuttle Discovery on April 25, 1990, Hubble has transmitted more than 750,000 spectacular images and streams of data from the ends of the universe, opening a new era in astronomy. But the telescope, the fruit of a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, had a troubled start and did not become operational...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – After months of delay, NASA cleared space shuttle Atlantis for a Monday launch to the Hubble Space Telescope. Mission managers concluded Saturday that Atlantis is ready to take off on the long-awaited Hubble repair mission, the fifth and final one. Shuttle Endeavour is also in good shape at the other launch pad; it's on standby in case Atlantis is damaged during the flight and its seven astronauts need to be rescued. Weather forecasters gave good odds for launching Atlantis: 80 percent. What's more, things were looking more encouraging at the emergency landing site in Spain, where...

Final preparations are under way for NASA's planned launch next week of the space shuttle Atlantis to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. The weather looks promising for the shuttle's planned liftoff May 11 at 2:01 p.m. EDT (1802 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters predicted an 80 percent chance of favorable weather that day, with a small risk of clouds or showers that could prevent a launch. If the shuttle is unable to lift off Monday, NASA can try again May 12 and May 13, though there is only a...

Just discovered that the Science Station will broadcast a show before and during the Hubble Repair Mission launch next Monday. Show will start at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. This mission, if it's successful, will increase all of Hubble's information gathering capacity by 10 to 30 times.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA has chosen May 11 as the launch date for its last repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, not seen up close for seven years. Space shuttle Atlantis is set to blast off then on the highly awaited 11-day flight, considered one of the most challenging yet. ... Atlantis' crew will conduct five spacewalks to replace and repair science instruments at Hubble, and install new equipment that should keep the orbiting telescope running for another five to 10 years.

March 6, 2003: The central region of the small galaxy NGC 1705 blazes with the light of thousands of young and old stars in this image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. At 17 million light-years away, the individual stars of the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 1705 are out of range of all but the sharp eyes of Hubble. NGC 1705 is classified as a dwarf irregular because it is small and lacks any regular structure. Q & A: Understanding the Discovery 1. Why did astronomers use the Hubble telescope to observe this galaxy? NGC 1705 is an ideal laboratory...

To commemorate almost two decades of photographing the wonders of the universe, the Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of a peculiar group of interacting galaxies that contains a "cosmic fountain" of stars, gas and dust that stretches about 100,000 light years. Over the past 19 years, Hubble has taken many images of galactic collisions and close encounters. The new image of a trio of galaxies, called Arp 194, looks as if of the galaxies has sprung a leak. The bright blue streamer seen in the image is really a stretched spiral arm full of newborn blue stars. This stellar...

Hubble telescope’s top ten greatest space photographs “…they illustrate that our universe is not only deeply strange, but also almost impossibly beautiful.” Michael Hanlon/AH (Nov 25th, 2006) After correcting an initial problem with the lens, when the Hubble Space Telescope was first launched in 1990, the floating astro-observatory began to relay back to Earth, incredible snapshots of the “final frontier” it was perusing. Recently, astronauts voted on the top photographs taken by Hubble, in its 16-year journey so far. Remarking in the article from the Daily Mail, reporter Michael Hanlon says the photos “illustrate that our universe is not only...

The Trifid Nebula. A 'stellar nursery', 9,000 light years from here, it is where new stars are being born. The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation. Starry Night, so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – The space shuttle that will carry NASA's last crew to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope was moved to its Florida launch pad on Tuesday in preparation for liftoff on May 12. Shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven astronauts were due to launch six months ago, but the failure of a computer aboard Hubble prompted NASA to delay the flight. Replacing the computer, which prepares data from Hubble's science instruments to be relayed back to Earth, was added to the long list of chores the astronauts will tackle during five days of spacewalks. Hubble, which...

Hubble's greatest hits: Hubble space telescope images

It appears that the Hubble might end up as collateral damage from the recent collision between an Iridium and Russian satellite. Without another service mission, the Hubble may meet its end within a year or two.The collision has sent more than 600 pieces of debris whizzing around the Earth at 17,500 mph. At those speeds, shards can take out a spacecraft (and you don't even want to think about what it could do to astronauts on a spacewalk). NASA has calculated the chance of a catastrophic impact at around 1 in 185—just below their 1 in 200 threshold. A decision...

Worst-ever orbital collision leads to calls for tighter regulation.A cloud of debris spreading through low Earth orbit following the collision of two satellites poses a new risk to many scientific missions and may signal the demise of the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA is monitoring the increased threat carefully, and if it is as bad as some fear, the agency may have to cancel the proposed shuttle-servicing mission slated for later this year. Without that mission, the telescope's days are numbered, even if none of the new debris comes anywhere close to it.At 04:56 GMT on 10 February an active communications...

The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted an exoplanet in an image that was captured 10 years ago, which raises hope that more planets lie buried in Hubbles vast archive. In 1998, Hubble studied the star HR 8799 in the infrared, as part of a search for planets around young and relatively nearby stars. The search came up empty. Last year, Christian Marois of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and colleagues looked at the same star using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii. They discovered three planets, each about 10 times as massive as Jupiter. They...

"A total of 14 young stars racing through clouds of gas like bullets, creating brilliant arrowhead structures and tails of glowing gas, have been revealed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. They represent a new type of runaway stars, scientists say. The discovery of the speedy stars by Hubble, announced here today at the 213th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, came as something of a shock to the astronomers who found them."

It's been quite a year for Hubble! New galaxies, colliding stars and more... Check out the magnificent views through NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, released in 2008. Above, Hubble discovers carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star, an important step along the trail of finding the chemical biotracers of extraterrestrial life as we know it. The Jupiter-sized planet, called HD 189733b, is too hot for life. But the Hubble observations are a proof-of-concept demonstration that the basic chemistry for life can be measured on planets orbiting other stars. Organic compounds can also be a by-product of life...

Carbon dioxide has been seen on a hot planet outside our solar system -- another piece of evidence supporting the possibility that life could develop elsewhere... NASA said its Hubble Space Telescope has discovered carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of "hot Jupiter" planet ...which orbits a nearby star 63 light-years from Earth. The planet is itself too hot to support life -- its surface is about 1,800 degrees F ... But the astronomers said the observations are a proof-of-concept demonstration that the basic chemistry for life can be measured on planets orbiting other stars. In March, they found the ingredients...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered both carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of a distant planet, in a key step for finding extraterrestrial life, the space agency said Tuesday. Detecting organic compounds that can be a by-product of life processes on an Earth-like body could one day "provide the first evidence of life beyond our planet," NASA said in a statement. The discovery was made on a Jupiter-size planet 63 light years away from Earth that is too hot for life, and is all gas and liquid. "We're not closer to discovering life on...

Three exoplanets orbiting the same star have been imaged directly

The first-ever pictures of planets outside the solar system have been released in two studies. Using the latest techniques in space technology, astronomers at NASA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used direct-imaging techniques to capture pictures of four newly discovered planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. "After all these years, it's amazing to have a picture showing not one but three planets," said physicist Bruce Macintosh of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. "The discovery of the HR 8799 system is a crucial step on the road to the ultimate detection of another Earth," he said....

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star. Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis, or the "Southern Fish."Fomalhaut has been a candidate for planet hunting ever since an excess of dust (a telltale sign of planet formation) was discovered around the star in the early 1980s by NASA's Infrared Astronomy Satellite, IRAS. In 2004, the coronagraph in the High Resolution Camera on Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys produced...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US space agency NASA said it had indefinitely delayed a February shuttle mission to repair the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, which was back in business after a four-week break to fix transmission problems. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration also announced the next shuttle launch for November 14, when an Endeavour mission will deliver more equipment to the International Space Station. The Hubble's instruments were suspended automatically on September 27 due to a technical problem with Side-A of its Science Data Formatter, a unit that stores and transmits data back to Earth. NASA's Hubble team switched the...

WASHINGTON – The Hubble Space Telescope is working again, taking stunning cosmic photos after a breakdown a month ago. The 18-year-old telescope is as good as it was before a shutdown in late September, according to the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. ... --snip-- To prove it, NASA released ..

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – The Hubble Space Telescope was in the final stages of recovery on Thursday after NASA successfully bypassed a faulty computer and resurrected an 18-year-old spare from orbital hibernation. The faulty computer, which is needed to collect and process data from science instruments, prompted NASA to delay a long-awaited space shuttle mission to service the telescope. The flight has been rescheduled for February, when the crew will attempt to replace the failed computer. --snip-- Engineers began the delicate task of switching to a backup system to collect and process Hubble's data on Wednesday. "Everything's going perfectly,"...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – NASA will attempt on Wednesday to revive the $2 billion Hubble Space Telescope, which was idled two weeks ago by an equipment failure, officials said on Tuesday. The breakdown of a computer needed to relay science data to Earth prompted NASA to postpone until next year a long-awaited space shuttle mission to upgrade the orbital observatory. That flight, which had been slated for liftoff on Tuesday, was rescheduled for February. Engineers plan to send commands to the telescope early on Wednesday to switch over to a backup computer that has not even been turned on...

A serious equipment failure aboard the Hubble Space Telescope is preventing it from relaying data and images to scientists on Earth and will likely delay a shuttle mission to overhaul the observatory next month, NASA officials said Monday. The glitch occurred Saturday in one of two sides of a device known as a Control Unit/Science Data Formatter that is responsible for sending data from Hubble to scientists on Earth, said Allard Beutel, a NASA spokesperson at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., where the shuttle Atlantis was being primed for an Oct. 14 launch. "The hardware failed,...

Don't get the idea that we've found every kind of astronomical object there is in the universe. In a paper to appear in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomers working on the Supernova Cosmology Project report finding a new kind of something that they cannot make any sense of. Now you don't see it, now you do. Something in Bootes truly in the middle of nowhere — apparently not even in a galaxy — brightened by at least 120 times during more than three months and then faded away. Its spectrum was like nothing ever seen, write the discoverers, with "five broad...

Seven NASA astronauts are eagerly looking forward to a risky, but pivotal, shuttle flight to the Hubble Space Telescope this fall. Veteran shuttle commander Scott Altman and his crew are preparing to launch in early October aboard the Atlantis orbiter on what is expected to be NASA's final service call on the iconic space observatory. The telescope passed its 100,000th orbit around Earth on Monday. "What we want to do, though, is refurbish the Hubble so that it can operate as long as possible," Altman said during a series of NASA interviews released on Monday. "We're going to add some...

In commemoration of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope completing its 100,000th orbit in its 18th year of exploration and discovery, scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., have aimed Hubble to take a snapshot of a dazzling region of celestial birth and renewal. Hubble peered into a small portion of the nebula near the star cluster NGC 2074 (upper, left). The region is a firestorm of raw stellar creation, perhaps triggered by a nearby supernova explosion. It lies about 170,000 light-years away near the Tarantula nebula, one of the most active star-forming regions in our Local Group of...

Just logged onto the Space Shuttle schedule and saw that NASA has delayed the Space Shuttle mission to the Hubble Telescope from August 28 to October 8. It looks like a May 22 update, so I'm going to assume this may be breaking news. Anyone have further details?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Astronomers have found some matter that had been missing in deep space and say it is strung along web-like filaments that form the backbone of the universe. The ethereal strands of hydrogen and oxygen atoms could account for up to half the matter that scientists knew must be there but simply could not see, the researchers reported on Tuesday. Scientists have long known there is far more matter in the universe than can be accounted for by visible galaxies and stars. Not only is there invisible baryonic matter -- the protons and neutrons that make up atoms...

This is a video of some of earth’s universe grandeur. The song is, God Is So Good, sung by children. The pictures and images were taken by Hubble telescope and the last image is called the Cat’s Eye Nebula.

Hubble servicing mission's launch date threatened BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: March 21, 2008 With the shuttle Endeavour's mission entering the home stretch, shuttle Discovery remains on track for blastoff May 25 to ferry a huge Japanese laboratory module to the international space station. But subsequent near-term flights, including a high-profile mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, could be delayed, sources say, because of ongoing external tank production issues. The tank used by Endeavour for its current mission was the last in the inventory of tanks built before the...

Using a cosmic magnifying glass to peer into the deepest reaches of space, two teams of astronomers have discovered tiny galaxies that may be among the most distant known. Images suggest that one of the galaxies is so remote that the light now reaching Earth left this starlit body when the 13.7-billion-year-old universe was only about 700 million years old. The discoveries are important, notes Tim Heckman of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, because they probe a special time in the universe, when the cosmos changed from a place filled with neutral gas to a place ionized by the emergence...

When astronauts overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope this summer, they will leave behind a vastly more powerful orbital observatory to scan the universe. Set to launch aboard NASA's shuttle Atlantis on Aug. 7, the Hubble servicing mission will be the fifth - and final - sortie to upgrade the aging space telescope. "We're not only going up to Hubble to refurbish it, but also to expand its grasp tremendously," said Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, in a recent briefing. "We expect to make the very best discoveries of the entire two-decade plus Hubble program with the...

Upgraded Hubble telescope to be 90 times as powerful 20:07 08 January 2008 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga, Austin Astronaut Steve Smith works on Hubble during the second servicing mission in 1997. Hubble was specifically built to be serviced in orbit with replaceable parts and instruments (Image: NASA) Space shuttle astronauts will attempt an unprecedented in-orbit repair of key Hubble Space Telescope (HST) instruments during the servicing mission scheduled for August 2008. The repairs, along with the addition of two new instruments, will make Hubble 90 times as powerful as it was after its flawed optics were corrected in 1993....

Astronomers have spotted small galaxies near the beginning of time that resemble ancestors of our own galactic home. The tiny galaxies are about one-tenth to one-twentieth the size of the Milky Way and have 40 times fewer stars. Light from the ancient clusters was emitted about 2 billion years after the Big Bang, the theoretical beginning to the universe that occurred about 13.7 billion years ago. So the galaxies are seen as they existed in a very young universe. The galaxies are not the most distant seen by the Hubble Space Telescope, but astronomers consider them to be the best...

<p>It's the last round-up for the people's telescope. Next August, after 20 years of hype, disappointment, blunders, triumphs and peerless glittering vistas of space and time, and four years after NASA decided to leave the Hubble Space Telescope to die in orbit, setting off public and congressional outrage, a group of astronauts will ride to the telescope aboard the space shuttle Atlantis with wrenches in hand...</p>

A team of astronomers have taken pictures of the stars that are sharper than anything produced by the Hubble telescope, at 50 thousandths of the cost. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), used a technique called “Lucky Imaging” to take the most detailed pictures of stars and nebulae ever produced – using a camera based on the ground. Images from ground-based telescopes are usually blurred by the Earth’s atmosphere - the same effect that makes the stars appear to twinkle when we look at them with the naked eye. The Cambridge/Caltech...