Celebrating 34 years of “Hubble” releasing images of the “Little Dumbbell Nebula”: PPTVHD36

Hubble Space Telescope releases images “Little Dumbbell Nebula” on the occasion of the 34th anniversary of Hubble’s work.

April 24, 1990 was the first day the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was launched into space. To carry out a mission to record images and help study various objects in space, including planets, stars, nebulae, and other galaxies outside the Milky Way.

To celebrate the 34th anniversary of the Hubble launch Astronomers have imaged the Little Dubbell Nebula, also known as galaxy M76, located 3,400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus.

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M76 is a popular target for amateur astronomers. It is classified as a Planetary Nebula (Planetary Nebula), which is a cloud of glowing gas that is ejected from a dying red giant star that collapses into a dense white dwarf.

Planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. The name comes from astronomers in the 1700s who used low-resolution telescopes and thought that these types of objects resembled planets.

M76 consists of rings. and there are two petals on either side of the ring opening. This appearance may be due to the fact that there once was a binary companion star.

The star that collapsed into a white dwarf to form the Little Dumbbell Nebula is one of the hottest stellar remnants ever discovered. Its temperature is as hot as 138,000 degrees Celsius, or 24 times the temperature of the sun’s surface. An extremely hot white dwarf star can be seen dotted at the center of the nebula.

The two petals we see in the image are hot gases escaping. along the axis of rotation of the star They are driven by a hurricane-like flow of material from a dying star. which hurtles through space at a speed of 3.2 million kilometers per hour. Fast enough to travel from Earth to the Moon in 7 minutes.

This strong stellar wind blows into cooler, slower-moving regions of gas. which are expelled during the first phase of a star’s life cycle When it became a red giant Strong ultraviolet rays cause the gas to glow. The red color comes from nitrogen. and the blue color comes from oxygen.

Over the past 34 years, Hubble has made 1.6 million observations of more than 53,000 astronomical objects in ultraviolet light. The total data set is more than 184 terabytes, and since 1990 it has been 44,000 scientific papers published about Hubble observations

The space telescope is the most scientifically productive mission in NASA history. Most of Hubble’s discoveries were unexpected, such as supermassive black holes. Atmospheres of exoplanets Gravitational lensing from dark matter existence of dark energy and the formation of planets among stars

Although NASA has the powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that takes images in the infrared wavelength, But it is designed to work with Hubble, not replace it.

Therefore, future studies of space will involve the interaction of two wavelengths of light. This could help expand groundbreaking research, such as the composition of exoplanets. unusual supernova galaxy core and chemistry in a distant universe

Compiled from NASA