Discoveries of Hubble space telescope | Iconic images from Hubble space telescope | Hubble discoveries Part-1

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The Hubble space telescope captured many iconic images since its launch on 24 April, 1990. It captured images starting from celestial objects in our solar system to very distant galaxies in the Observable Universe.

Since 1993, NASA is integrating the advanced instruments in the Hubble space telescope to collect data and capture high resolution images. This helps the scientists to understand the science behind them more accurately.

Let's look at some of the iconic images from Hubble space telescope.

Pillars of creation:

Pillars_of_Creation_Into_the_dark_space
Image credit: NASA, Jeff Hester, and Paul Scowen (Arizona State University)

Pillars of creation is an image taken by the Hubble space telescope on 1 April, 1995. It is a region of elephant trunks of interstellar gas and dust in Eagle Nebula located in Serpens constellation at a distance of 7000 light years away from the Earth.

This region of space was recaptured in 2011 by ESA's Herschel Space Observatory and Hubble in 2014.

Crab Nebula:

Crab_Nebula_Into_the_dark_space
Image credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)

Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant of a star located in the Taurus constellation at a distance of 6500 light years away from the Earth. It corresponds to the SN 1054 supernova, filed by ancient astronomers in 1054 AD.

The image of Crab Nebula was assembled from 24 individual exposures by Hubble (Wide Field Planetary Camera 2), taken in October 1999, January and December of 2000. This is the largest image of a supernova remnant ever taken by Hubble and the highest resolution image ever made of entire Nebula.

A neutron star called 'Crab Pulsar' which is 30 kms across, lies at the centre of the Crab Nebula. This pulsar spins at a rate of 30 times per second and pulses radiation in between high energy gamma rays to radio waves.

NGC 1015:

NGC_1015_Into_the_dark_space
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Riess (STScl/JHU)

NGC 1015 is a barred spiral galaxy like our Milky way galaxy. It is located at a distance of 118 million light years away from the Earth in the constellation of Cetus (The Whale).

The circles seen in the image are the cepheid variable stars and brighter spots are the supernovae occurring in the NGC 1015 galaxy. NGC 1015 was observed by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 in 2013.

The Orion Nebula:

Orion_Nebula_Into_the_dark_space
Image credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

Orion Nebula is a region of interstellar gas and dust located at a distance of 1300 light years away from the Earth in the constellation of Orion.

It is also known as M42 or NGC 1976. It is one of brightest nebulae in the night sky, which is visible to our naked eye. Orion Nebula is the nearest star formation area to Earth, in which thousands of stars are being born. It is estimated that the Orion Nebula is 24 light years across and 2000 times more massive than the Sun.

This image consists of more than 3000 stars in various stages in their lives. The brighter spot at the centre consists of four massive stars in the Nebula.

GN-z11 galaxy:

Distant_galaxy_GN-z11_Into_the_dark_space
Image credit: NASA, ESA, P. Oesch (Yale University), G. Brammer (STScI), P. van Dokkum (Yale University), and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz)

GN-z11 galaxy is the most distant, oldest and highest red shifted known galaxy in the Observable Universe, located at a staggering distance of 32 billion light years away from the Earth in the constellation of Ursa Major.

This galaxy is identified by the Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. It is estimated that the light reaching us from the GN-z11 is of 13.4 billion years old meaning 400 million years after big bang. So, the light we are observing from GN-z11 galaxy is from the ending of the 'Dark ages of the Universe' and beginning of 're-ionzation era'.

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