Science Features
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NASA's Great Observatories Celebrate International Year of Astronomy
11.10.09 - NASA is unveiling a new view of the turbulent heart of our Milky Way galaxy, as seen by three of the agency's space-based observatories.
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Hubble Showcases Star Birth in Southern Pinwheel
11.05.09 - The spectacular new camera installed on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope during Servicing Mission 4 in May has delivered the most detailed view of star birth in the graceful, curving arms of the nearby spiral galaxy M83.
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Hyperactive Galaxies in the Early Universe
08.05.09 - Fast-moving stars shed new light on how these distant galaxies, which are a fraction the size of our Milky Way, may have evolved into the full-grown galaxies seen around us today.
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Hubble Captures Rare Jupiter Collision
07.24.09 - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the sharpest visible-light picture yet of atmospheric debris from an object that collided with Jupiter on July 19.
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Hubble Photographs Nebula to Honor Retiring of Camera
05.11.09 - In tribute to Hubble's longest-running optical camera, a planetary nebula has been imaged as WFPC2's final "pretty picture."
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Refined Hubble Constant Narrows in on Dark Energy
05.07.09 - Whatever dark energy is, explanations for it have less wiggle room following a Hubble Space Telescope observation.
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Dwarf Galaxy Starbursts: A Global Affair
04.30.09 - Starbursts light up regions of space for a short time before winking out. But these fleeting stellar fireworks displays are only pieces of the story.
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Hubble Celebrates Its 19th Anniversary
04.21.09 - To commemorate the Hubble Space Telescope's 19 years of historic, trailblazing science, the orbiting telescope has photographed a peculiar system of galaxies known as Arp 194.
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Hubble Sees Spectacular Black Hole Flaring
04.14.09 - A flare-up in a jet of matter blasting from a monster black hole is giving astronomers an incredible light show.
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Hubble Images Contest-Winning Triplet Galaxy
04.03.09 - Hubble photographed the winning target in the Space Telescope Science Institute's "You Decide" competition: a group of galaxies called Arp 274.
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Hubble Finds Hidden Exoplanet in Archival Data
04.01.09 - A powerful image-processing technique may allow astronomers to discover extrasolar planets lurking in over a decade's worth of Hubble Space Telescope archival data.
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Hubble Finds Rare Progenitor to a Supernova
03.23.09 - Hubble has identified a star that was one million times brighter than Earth's sun before it exploded as a supernova in 2005.
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Hubble Snaps Saturn Moon Transit
03.17.09 - On Feb. 24, 2009, the Hubble Space Telescope took a photo sequence of four moons of Saturn passing in front of their parent planet.
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Dark Matter and Dwarf Galaxies
03.12.09 - The Hubble Space Telescope has photographed three galaxies in the process of colliding.
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Trio of Galaxies Mix It Up
03.03.09 - The Hubble Space Telescope has photographed three galaxies in the process of colliding.
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Hubble Snaps Images of a Nebula Within a Cluster
01.15.09 - The unique planetary nebula NGC 2818 is nested inside the open star cluster NGC 2818A. Both the cluster and the nebula reside over 10,000 light-years away, in the southern constellation Pyxis (the Compass).
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Hubble Finds Stars That 'Go Ballistic'
01.07.08 - Hubble images reveal 14 young, runaway stars plowing through regions of dense interstellar gas, creating brilliant arrowhead structures and trailing tails of glowing gas.
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Star Light, Star Bright, Its Explanation is Out of Sight
01.06.09 - A mysterious flash of light from somewhere near or far in the universe is still keeping astronomers in the dark long after it was first detected in 2006.
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Hubble Views Galactic Core in Unprecedented New Detail
01.05.09 - Researchers are getting a new detailed look at our galaxy's core, thanks to the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.
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Brown Dwarfs Don't Hang Out With Stars
01.05.09 - Brown dwarfs just got more elusive, based on a study of 233 nearby multiple-star systems by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
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Hubble Finds Carbon Dioxide on an Extrasolar Planet
12.09.08 - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star.
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Jupiter's Largest Moon Goes to the 'Dark Side'
12.18.08 - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, playing a game of "peek-a-boo."
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A Celestial Snow Globe of Stars
12.04.08 - Hubble has captured an instantaneous glimpse of many hundreds of thousands of stars moving about in the M13 globular cluster.
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Hubble Solves Starburst Galaxy Puzzle
11.20.08 - Hubble has helped astronomers determine why a small, nearby, isolated galaxy pumps out new stars faster than any other in our local neighborhood.
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Hubble Sees Planet Orbiting Another Star
11.13.08 - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star.
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Hubble Scores a Perfect Ten
10.30.08 - Just a few days after the orbiting observatory was brought back online, Hubble aimed its sights on a pair of gravitationally interacting galaxies.
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Celebrating 10 Years of Hubble Heritage Images
10.02.08 - The landmark 10th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's Hubble Heritage Project is being celebrated with a "landscape" image from the cosmos.
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Diversity in Galaxies
09.30.08 - There's an old saying in astronomy: Galaxies are like people. They're only normal until you get to know them.
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Galaxy Silhouettes
09.16.08 - These Hubble images offer an unprecedented view of a planetary game of Pac-Man among three red spots clustered together in Jupiter's atmosphere.
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Hubble Sees Magnetic Monster in Erupting Galaxy
08.20.08 - Hubble has found an answer to a long-standing puzzle by examining a strong magnetic field around the active galaxy NGC 1275.
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Hubble Unveils Colorful Star Nursery on 100,000th Orbit
08.11.08 - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of a nebula near star cluster NGC 2074 on Aug. 10, 2008, the day before the observatory completed its 100,00th orbit of Earth.
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Globular Clusters Tell Tale of Star Formation
07.29.08 - A new study of globular clusters has found evidence that these hardy pioneers are likely to form in dense areas, where star birth occurs at a rapid rate.
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Barred Spiral Galaxies Are Latecomers to the Universe
07.29.08 - Astronomers have found that so-called barred spiral galaxies were far less plentiful 7 billion years ago than they are today, in the local universe.
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Three Red Spots Mix it Up on Jupiter
07.17.08 - These Hubble images offer an unprecedented view of a planetary game of Pac-Man among three red spots clustered together in Jupiter's atmosphere.
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Mystery Star Cluster Has 3 Different Birthdays
07.10.08 - Astronomers have found the equivalent of three out-of-sync "clocks" in the ancient open star cluster NGC 6791.
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Hubble Sees Stars and a Stripe in Celestial Fireworks
07.01.08 - Hubble captures a very thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago.
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The Coma Cluster
06.10.08 - The Coma Cluster is one of the densest known galaxy collections in the universe.
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Hubble Finds Missing Matter
05.20.08 - Astronomers say they have found about half of the universe's "missing" normal matter, called baryons, in the space between galaxies.
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Compact Galaxies in Early Universe Pack a Big Punch
04.30.08 - Astronomers used Hubble and the W.M. Keck Observatory to study the galaxies as they existed 11 billion years ago.
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Cosmic Collisions Galore!
04.24.08 - Astronomy textbooks typically present galaxies as staid, solitary, and majestic island worlds of glittering stars, but galaxies have a wild side.
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Hubble Pinpoints Record-Breaking Explosion
04.10.08 - The Hubble photographed a gamma-ray burst that holds the record for being the intrinsically brightest naked-eye object ever seen from Earth.
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Scientists Find Black Hole in Omega Centauri
04.02.08 - A well-known star cluster that glitters with the light of millions of stars may have a mysterious dark object tugging at its core.
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Hubble Sees Organic Molecule on Distant Planet
03.19.08 - The Hubble Space Telescope has found methane in the atmosphere of a gas giant more than 60 light-years away.
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The Last Confessions of a Dying Star
03.04.08 - The Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of planetary nebula NGC 2371, the glowing remains of a sun-like star.
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Hubble Discovers 67 New 'Lensed' Galaxies
02.20.08 - Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have compiled a large catalog of gravitational lenses in the distant universe.
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Astronomers Uncover One of the Youngest and Brightest Galaxies in the Early Universe
02.12.08 - NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, with a boost from a natural “zoom lens,” have uncovered what may be one of the youngest and brightest galaxies ever seen in the middle of the cosmic “dark ages,” just 700 million years after the beginning of our universe.
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Giant Storm Eruption at Jupiter Unearths a Buried Past
01.24.08 - Scientists around the globe have observed an astonishing and rare change in Jupiter's atmosphere -- a huge disturbance churning in the middle northern latitudes of the planet as two giant storms erupted.
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Hubble Finds Rare Double Ring in Space
01.10.08 - Hubble has revealed a never-before-seen optical alignment in space: a pair of glowing rings, one nestled inside the other.
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Hubble Uncovers Giant Space 'Moth'
01.10.08 - A structure resembling a giant moth floating in space is giving astronomers new insight into planetary system formation.
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The Violent Lives of Galaxies
01.10.08 - Astronomers are using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope as part of a quest to understand the violent lives of galaxies.
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'Blue Blobs' in Space Are Orphaned Clusters of Stars
01.08.08 - Hubble finds 'blue blobs' are brilliant blue clusters of stars born in the swirls and eddies of a galactic smashup 200 million years ago.
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Mars, Up-Close and Personal
12.18.07 - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took this close-up of the red planet when it was "only" 55 million miles away.
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How White Dwarf Stars Get Their 'Kicks'
12.04.07 - The Hubble is providing strong evidence that the burned-out relics of stars are given a "kick" when they form.
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Holiday Wishes from the Hubble Space Telescope
11.29.07 - This Hubble image of galaxy M74 resembles festive lights on a holiday wreath.
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Hubble Zooms in on Heart of Mystery Comet
11.15.07 - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has probed the bright core of Comet 17P/Holmes, which mysteriously brightened by nearly a millionfold in October.
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Dancing With the Stars Takes on a Whole New Twist →
10.30.07 - Two galaxies perform an intricate dance in this new picture taken by the JPL-built and designed Wide Field and Planetary 2 Camera, onboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
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Hubble Spies Shells of Sparkling Stars Around Quasar
10.26.07 - The Hubble photos show shells of stars around a bright quasar, known as MC2 1635+119, which dominates the center of the galaxy.
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Hubble Finds 'Dorian Gray' Galaxy
10.16.07 - Hubble has found a mysterious galaxy that seems to age rapidly like the painting in the 'Portrait of Dorian Gray.'
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Hubble Captures Stars Going out in Style
09.11.07 - The colorful, intricate shapes in these NASA Hubble Space Telescope images reveal how the glowing gas ejected by dying Sun-like stars evolves dramatically over time.
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'Lego-Block' Galaxies in Early Universe
09.06.07 - Joining forces, the two telescopes discovered nine of the smallest, faintest, most compact galaxies ever observed in the distant universe
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Hubble Camera Snags Rare View of Uranus Rings
08.23.07 - A rare image of the ring system of the planet Uranus has been captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, using the onboard JPL-built and designed Wide Field Planetary Camera 2.
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Hubble, Google Bring the Cosmos Down to Earth
08.22.07 - Exploding star and faraway galaxy images from the Hubble Space Telescope are now just a mouse click away through 'Sky' in Google Earth.
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Hubble Discovers Lopsided Star
07.19.07 - Hubble finds dust and debris parading in an extremely misshapen ring around a young star.
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Stellar Fireworks Are Ablaze in Galaxy NGC 4449
07.03.07 - At nearly 12.5 million light-years away, the dwarf galaxy NGC 4449 has stellar "fireworks" going off all the time.
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Hubble Catches Jupiter Changing Its Stripes
06.28.07 - Massive Jupiter is undergoing dramatic atmospheric changes under the keen eye of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
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Hubble Helps Prepare For Dawn's Asteroid Mission
06.20.07 - Hubble's images of two massive asteroids will help astronomers plan for the Dawn spacecraft’s tour of them in 2011.
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Astronomers Measure Dwarf Planet Eris
06.14.07 - The Hubble group has teamed up with the Keck Observatory to precisely measure the mass of Eris, the largest member of a new class of dwarf planets in our solar system.
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Hubble Photographs Grand Design Spiral Galaxy M81
05.28.07 - Hubble's sharpest image of spiral galaxy M81 is released at the Spring 2007 American Astronomical Society Meeting.
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Hubble Finds Ghostly Ring of Dark Matter
05.15.07 - Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a ghostly ring of dark matter that formed long ago during a titanic collision between two galaxy clusters.
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Happy Birthday Hubble
04.24.07 - To celebrate Hubble's birthday a team of astronomers is releasing one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's cameras.
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Saturn Stars in Three Hubble Movies
03.20.07 - Photogenic Saturn has now become a movie star. Astronomers have woven NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of Saturn, its rings, and several of its moons into three movies.
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Hubble Sees 'Comet Galaxy' Being Ripped Apart by Galaxy Cluster
03.02.07 - The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a galaxy being ripped apart by a galaxy cluster's gravitational field and harsh environment.
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Hubble Supports New Horizons Jupiter Flyby
03.01.07 - Hubble took images of the planet Jupiter in support of the New Horizons flyby.
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Hubble Illuminates Cluster of Diverse Galaxies
02.06.07 - This image feature shows the diverse collection of galaxies in the cluster Abell S0740 that is over 450 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Centaurus.
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Hubble Sees Star Cluster "Infant Mortality"
01.31.07 - Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble have discovered that young stellar nurseries have very short lives.
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Hubble Maps 'Clumpy' Dark Matter in 3-D
01.07.07 - The Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers their first direct look at the large web like distribution of dark matter in the universe.
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Hubble Finds Extrasolar Planets Far Away
10.04.06 - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered 16 extrasolar planet candidates orbiting a variety of distant stars in the central region of our Milky Way galaxy.
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Pluto and Its Moons
06.23.06 - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed the presence of two moons around the distant planet Pluto.
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Fragmenting Comet Won't Hit Earth
04.27.06 - Hubble reveals several dozen mini-fragments trailing behind the main fragment of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3.
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Happy Sweet Sixteen, Hubble!
04.24.06 - Over its 16-year history, Hubble has taken many hundreds of images that have expanded our knowledge of the universe.
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Hubble Finds 'Tenth Planet' Slightly Larger Than Pluto
04.11.06 - Though previous observations suggested that Xena's diameter was about 30 percent greater than Pluto, Hubble observations show Xena's diameter as 1,490 miles.
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Galactic Dust Bunnies
Hubble spies opaque, dark knots of gas called "Bok globules" in the Milky Way.
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Hubble's Largest Galaxy Portrait Ever
02.28.06 - The largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy ever released.
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Hubble Confirms Pluto's New Moons
02.22.06 - Anxiously awaited follow-up observations confirm the presence of two new moons around Pluto.
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Hubble Finds More Moons, Rings at Uranus
12.22.05
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Hubble Spots Possible New Moons Around Pluto
10.31.05
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Hubble Prospects for Lunar Resources
10.19.05 - NASA scientists are using the Hubble Space Telescope to hunt for resources on the lunar surface.
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'Big Baby' Galaxies in Newborn Universe
09.27.05 - NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes have teamed up to "weigh" the stars in several distant galaxies.
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Hats Off to Space Day!
05.04.05 - NASA salutes Space Day, observed this year on May 5, with a new dramatic image of the Sombrero galaxy.
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Happy 15th, Hubble!
04.25.05 - NASA released new views of the Eagle Nebula, and spiral galaxy M51, known as the Whirlpool Galaxy.
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Hubble Celebrates an Anniversary →
04.23.04 - April marks 14 years of enoying Hubble's enchanted images.
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Hubble Digs Deeply, Toward Big Bang
03.09.04 - The Hubble Ultra Deep Field looks back in time to the cosmic "dark ages."
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The Farthest Known Galaxy in the Universe
02.17.04 - Scientists spotted this galaxy 13 billion light-years away using the combined power of the Hubble and Keck Telescopes
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Two Hubbles Achieve Great Heights
01.22.04 - Named for astronomer Dr. Edwin Hubble, Hubble Space Telescope's discoveries continue to excite the imagination
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Hats Off to the Sombrero
10.02.03 - Hubble's new image of the Sombrero galaxy celebrates the Hubble Heritage team's five-year anniversary.
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Hubble Gets the 'GOODS'
06.19.03 - The Hubble Space Telescope has conducted a galactic "census," the most ambitious study of the early universe it has yet undertaken.
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Pencil Nebula Scribbles Notes from Past
06.05.03 - Astronomers today are studying the remnants of a supernova that occurred about 11,000 years ago.
Hubble Accomplishments
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Age of the Universe →
Thanks in part to the Hubble Space Telescope, we know the universe is 13.7 billion years old.
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At Galaxies' Cores →
Nearly all galaxies may harbor supermassive black holes.
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How Planets Form
The Hubble Space Telescope has helped scientists determine the process of how planets are born.
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Extrasolar Organic Matter
The Hubble Space Telescope detected the first organic molecule discovered on a planet outside our solar system.
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Dark Energy →
The Hubble Space Telescope detected a distant supernova that suggests the universe only recently began speeding up.
World Book at NASA
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Edwin P. Hubble
The work of American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble revolutionized our understanding of the size and structure of the universe.
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Galaxy
A galaxy is a system of stars, dust, and gas held together by gravity.
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Nebula
A nebula is a cloud of dust particles and gases in space.
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Planet
A planet is a large, round heavenly body that orbits a star and shines with light reflected from the star.
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Space Exploration
Space exploration is our human response to curiosity about Earth, the moon, the planets, the sun and other stars, and the galaxy.