NASA - Hubble Space Telescope updates

[jacqmans]

Hubble celebrates 35th year in orbit
23/04/2025

In celebration of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 35 years in Earth orbit, an assortment of images that were recently taken by Hubble has been released today. This stretches from the planet Mars to images of stellar birth and death, and a magnificent neighbouring galaxy. After over three decades of scrutinising our Universe, Hubble remains a household word as the most well-recognised telescope in scientific history.

Astronomers knew that placing a telescope above Earth’s blurry atmosphere would allow them to see the Universe like never before. Hubble’s view would be ten times sharper than conventional ground-based telescopes of the time. Its high sensitivity would uncover objects more than one-billionth the brightness of the faintest stars seen by the human eye. Unfiltered by Earth's atmosphere, its broad wavelength coverage would stretch from ultraviolet to near-infrared light. Glorious celestial wonders would come into focus. Moreover, Hubble would be an audacious leap forward in human imagination, engineering prowess and boundless curiosity.

Before Hubble, no generation ever had access to unimaginably vibrant views of space, stretching almost all the way back to almost the beginning of time. For most of history, the complexity and extent of the vast cosmos was left largely to human imagination. But Hubble entered the final sprint in the race to the edge of the visible Universe. In the early 1920s, the telescope’s namesake, astronomer Edwin Hubble, started this marathon with the discovery of galaxies outside of our Milky Way.

Hubble today is at the peak of its scientific return thanks to the dedication, perseverance and skills of engineers, scientists and mission operators. Astronaut shuttle crews chased and rendezvoused with Hubble on five servicing missions from 1993 to 2009. The astronauts, including ESA astronauts on two of the servicing missions, upgraded Hubble's cameras, computers and other support systems.

By extending Hubble’s operational life the telescope has made nearly 1.7 million observations, looking at approximately 55 000 astronomical targets. Hubble discoveries have resulted in over 22 000 papers and over 1.3 million citations as of February 2025. All the data collected by Hubble is archived and currently adds up to over 400 terabytes. The demand for observing time remains very high with 6:1 oversubscriptions, making it one of the most in-demand observatories today.

Hubble’s long operational life has allowed astronomers to see astronomical changes spanning over three decades: seasonal variability on the planets in our Solar System, black hole jets travelling at nearly the speed of light, stellar convulsions, asteroid collisions, expanding supernova bubbles and much more.

A lasting legacy

Hubble’s legacy is the bridge between our past and future knowledge of a Universe that is unbelievably glorious, as well as rambunctious – with colliding galaxies, voracious black holes and relentless stellar fireworks. Hubble, more than any other telescope, sees the Universe through the eyes of Einstein: microlensing, time dilation, the cosmological constant, matter disappearing into a black hole and a source of gravitational waves.

Before 1990, powerful optical telescopes on Earth could see only halfway across the cosmos. Estimates for the age of the Universe disagreed by a big margin. Supermassive black holes were only suspected to be the powerhouses behind a rare 'zoo' of energetic phenomena. Not a single planet had been seen around another star.

Among its long list of breakthroughs: Hubble’s deep fields unveiled myriad galaxies dating back to the early Universe; precisely measured the Universe’s expansion; found that supermassive black holes are common among galaxies; made the first measurement of the atmospheres of extrasolar planets; contributed to discovering 'dark energy', which is accelerating the Universe.

After three decades, Hubble remains a household word as the most well-recognised and celebrated scientific instrument in human history. Hubble’s discoveries and images have been nothing less than transformative for the public’s perception of the cosmos. Unlike any other telescope before it, Hubble has made astronomy very relevant, engaging and accessible for people of all ages. Hubble became 'the people’s telescope,' touching the minds as well as the emotions of hundreds of millions of humans around the globe.

A single Hubble snapshot can portray the Universe as awesome, mysterious and beautiful – and at the same time chaotic, overwhelming and foreboding. These pictures have become iconic, seminal and timeless. They viscerally communicate the value of science: the awe and drive to seek understanding of our place in the cosmos. In commemoration, NASA and ESA released images today of five astronomical targets that were selected for the celebration, ranging from planets to nebulae to galaxies.

The relentless pace of Hubble’s trailblazing discoveries kicked-started a new generation of space telescopes for the 21st century. The powerful James Webb Space Telescope may not have been built without Hubble revealing an 'undiscovered country' of far-flung, seemingly countless galaxies. Hubble provided the first observational evidence that there was a lot for Webb to pursue in infrared wavelengths that reach even greater distances beyond Hubble’s gaze. Now, Hubble and Webb are often being used in complement to study everything from exoplanets to galaxy dynamics.

35th anniversary images

An assortment of compelling images have been released today that were recently taken by Hubble:

Mars: These are a combination of Hubble Space Telescope images of Mars taken from 28-30 December 2024. At the midpoint of the observations, Mars was approximately 98 million km from Earth. Thin water-ice clouds that are apparent in ultraviolet light give the 'Red Planet' a frosty appearance. The icy northern polar cap was experiencing the start of martian spring.

Planetary nebula NGC 2899: This object has a diagonal, bipolar, cylindrical outflow of gas. This is propelled by radiation and stellar winds from a white dwarf at the centre with a temperature of nearly 22 000 degrees Celsius. In fact, there may be two companion stars that are interacting and sculpting the nebula, which is pinched in the middle by a fragmented ring or torus – looking like a half-eaten doughnut. It has a forest of gaseous 'pillars' that point back to the source of radiation and stellar winds. The colours are from glowing hydrogen and oxygen. The nebula lies approximately 4500 light-years away in the southern constellation Vela.

Rosette Nebula: This is a Hubble Space Telescope photo of a small portion of the Rosette Nebula, a huge star-forming region spanning 100 light-years across and located 5200 light-years away. Hubble zooms into a small portion of the nebula that is only four light-years across (the approximate distance between our Sun and the neighbouring Alpha Centauri star system.) Dark clouds of hydrogen gas laced with dust are silhouetted across the image. The clouds are being eroded and shaped by the seething radiation from the cluster of larger stars in the centre of the nebula (NGC 2440). An embedded star seen at the tip of a dark cloud in the upper right portion of the image is launching jets of plasma that are crashing into the cold cloud around it. The resulting shock wave is causing a red glow. The colours come from the presence of hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 5335: This object is categorised as a flocculent spiral galaxy with patchy streamers of star formation across its disk. There is a striking lack of well-defined spiral arms that are commonly found among galaxies, including our Milky Way. A notable bar structure slices across the centre of the galaxy. The bar channels gas inwards toward the galactic centre, fuelling star formation. Such bars are dynamic in galaxies and may come and go over two-billion-year intervals. They appear in about 30 percent of observed galaxies, including our Milky Way.

Hubble’s science and discoveries in recent years

Even at the impressive age of 35, there has been no slowdown in the research and new discoveries made using Hubble – if anything, the opposite. Astronomers from Europe make intensive use of the telescope, with the share of observing time awarded to European-led programmes being consistently above the 15% guaranteed by ESA’s participation in the Hubble mission thanks to their many proposals with strong scientific merit.

This has led directly to discoveries including evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole in Omega Centauri, a precursor to the earliest supermassive black holes, a bizarre explosion of extraordinarily bright light originating far from any host galaxy, hydrogen burning in white dwarf stars, and the absence of Population III stars as far back in time as Hubble can see. A particular highlight, and a demonstration of Hubble’s incredible capabilities, was the discovery in 2022 of Earendel. The most distant single star ever seen, Earendel is viewed 12.9 billion years into the past when the Universe was under a billion years old.

Benefiting from Hubble’s long operational life, the OPAL programme celebrated a decade studying the Solar System’s outer planets. Discoveries such as evidence for water vapour on Jupiter’s moons Europa and Ganymede, 'spokes' in Saturn’s rings, the size of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and the colours of Uranus and Neptune are just some that have resulted. Smaller Solar System bodies got attention from Hubble as well – not least the asteroid Dimorphos, target of the DART asteroid redirection test. Hubble took images of Dimorphos before and after the impact alongside Webb, later producing a movie of the debris and spotting ejected boulders. A citizen science project also discovered thousands of asteroid trails in over two decades of archived Hubble snapshots.

Beyond the Solar System, Hubble proved its continued importance in the rapidly growing field of research into exoplanets. It studied weather patterns in an exoplanet’s atmosphere, saw a new atmosphere being formed around a rocky exoplanet similar to Earth, and found a small exoplanet with water vapour in its atmosphere. Also completed in 2021 was a compilation of supernova host galaxies from 18 years of study, images that were used to measure the Hubble constant to its highest accuracy yet. This year too brought the culmination of the largest ever photomosaic of the Andromeda Galaxy, created from ten years of Hubble observations of our near neighbour.

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Hubble_celebrates_35th_year_in_orbit#msdynmkt_trackingcontext=ee95c7be-1a95-44aa-9303-866cb5ca0300

[Targeteer]

https://www.space.com/astronomy/asteroids/hubble-spots-interstellar-invader-comet-3i-atlas-for-the-first-time

Hubble spots interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS for the first time
News

The long-serving space telescope saw the third interloper to enter the solar system from beyond its limits late on Monday morning (July 21).

https://archive.stsci.edu/proposal_search.php?id=17830&mission=hst

[Star One]

Hubble’s Inside the Image: Saturn’s Aurorae:

[jacqmans]

Focusing on NGC 3370
24/10/2025

Today’s ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week features a galaxy that Hubble has captured multiple times over more than 20 years. The galaxy is called NGC 3370, and it is a spiral galaxy located nearly 90 million light-years away in the constellation Leo (The Lion).

What is it about this galaxy that makes it a popular target for researchers? NGC 3370 is home to two kinds of objects that astronomers prize for their usefulness in determining distances to faraway galaxies: Cepheid variable stars and Type Ia supernovae.

Cepheid variable stars change in both size and temperature as they pulsate. As a result, the luminosity of these stars varies over a period of days to months. It does so in a way that reveals something important: the more luminous a Cepheid variable star is, the more slowly it pulsates. By measuring how long a Cepheid variable’s brightness takes to complete one cycle, astronomers can determine how bright the star actually is. Paired with how bright the star appears from Earth, this information gives the distance to the star and its home galaxy.

Type Ia supernovae provide a way to measure distances in a single explosive burst rather than through regular brightness variations. Type Ia supernovae happen when the dead core of a star ignites in a sudden flare of nuclear fusion. These explosions peak at very similar luminosities, and much like for a Cepheid variable star, knowing the intrinsic brightness of a supernova explosion allows for its distance to be measured. Observations of Cepheid variable stars and Type Ia supernovae are both critical for precisely measuring how fast our Universe is expanding.

A previous Hubble image of NGC 3370 was released in 2003. The image released today zooms in on the galaxy, presenting a richly detailed view that incorporates wavelengths of light that were not included in the previous version. NGC 3370 is a member of the NGC 3370 group of galaxies along with other Hubble targets NGC 3447 and NGC 3455.

[Image Description: A spiral galaxy occupies most of the image. It is a slightly tilted disc of stars, yellow-white in the centre and blue in the outskirts, showing light from different stars in the galaxy. Its spiral arms curl outwards from the centre, speckled with blue star clusters. Dark reddish threads of dust swirl around the galaxy’s centre. The backdrop is two medium-sized and many small, distant galaxies on a black background.]

[Blackstar]

There is something just posted to the HST Facebook page about using JWST imagery to update a HST image of Uranus. I'd post the link here, but I'm a bit reluctant to post links to sites that require a subscription to see them. Not posted to their main site, although maybe soon?

https://www.stsci.edu/home

[StraumliBlight]

NTRS: Hubble Space Telescope and Swift Observatory Orbit Decay Study [Nov 1]

Recent studies (ref. 1) estimate the observatory to decay in the mid 2030’s with approximately 20% of the mass (ref. 3) of the spacecraft surviving reentry, increasing the probability of casualties on the ground given an uncontrolled reentry. The current NASA requirement for human casualty is 1/10,000 (ref. 5).

[...]

Results of this study conclude that for the nominal predicted solar activity, and average projected surface area, HST is predicted to reenter Earth’s sensible atmosphere in 2033, with a debris footprint that ranges approximately 350 kilometers (km) to 800 km along the ground track.

While the exact location of reentry and footprint were not estimated, the probability of casualty ranges from and average overall risk of 1:330 over the entire inclination region HST crosses to 1:31,000 over the most remotely inhabited region of the South Pacific Ocean from the two simulations conducted.

[...]

HST was located 489 km above Earth’s surface as of April 2025 with a 28.46-degree inclination and near circular orbit. Flight Dynamics Facility (FDF) orbital altitude as of March 2025, Figure 6-2, shows the recent trend, losing approximately 45 km since January 2022 and 5-6 km since January 2025.

[...]

Results for an average cross-sectional area of 71 m², derived Cd of 1.74, MSIS atmosphere model, and 50th percentile solar activity prediction MSAFE file produces a possible HST reentry in October 2033. (F-8)

Assuming a higher projected area which increases drag, shows earlier reentry times as early as Fall of 2030. Using the minimum projected area pushes out that reentry well into the 2050s.

Varying drag coefficient to higher values, +1 sigma (derived from the data in Figure 7.2-2), has a stronger effect on drag and reentry leading to a 2026 possibility, while a –1-sigma drag coefficient pushes out the reentry to 2043. Likewise, an extreme solar prediction environment of the 95th percentile produces a 2027 reentry, and a 5th percentile environment produces a 2034 date

[jacqmans]

Hubble reobserves 3I/ATLAS
05/12/2025

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reobserved interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on 30 November with its Wide Field Camera 3 instrument. At the time, the comet was about 286 million km from Earth. Hubble tracked the comet as it moved across the sky. As a result, background stars appear as streaks of light.

Hubble previously observed 3I/ATLAS in July, shortly after its discovery, and a number of observatories have since studied the comet as well. Observations are expected to continue for several more months as 3I/ATLAS heads out of the solar system.

[Image description: A bright white point sits at the centre of the image, surrounded by a large, soft blue glow that fades gradually into a dark background. Thin, faint streaks appear diagonally across the image, suggesting motion or stars in the distance. The overall effect is of a luminous object in space, radiating light against a deep, dark backdrop.]

[jacqmans]

Hubble sees asteroids colliding around nearby star
18/12/2025

In a historical milestone, astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope witnessed the catastrophic collisions in a nearby planetary system. As they observed the bright star Fomalhaut, scientists saw the impact of massive objects around the star. The Fomalhaut system appears to be in a dynamical upheaval, similar to what our Solar System experienced in its first few hundred million years after formation.

“This is certainly the first time I’ve ever seen a point of light appear out of nowhere in an exoplanetary system,” said principal investigator Paul Kalas of the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s absent in all of our previous Hubble images, which means that we just witnessed a violent collision between two massive objects and a huge debris cloud unlike anything in our own Solar System today. Amazing!"

Just 25 light-years from Earth, Fomalhaut is one of the brightest stars in the night sky. Located in the constellation Piscis Austrinus, also known as the Southern Fish, it is more massive and brighter than the Sun and is encircled by several belts of dusty debris.

In 2008, scientists used Hubble to discover a candidate planet around Fomalhaut, making it the first stellar system with a possible planet found using visible light. That object, called Fomalhaut b, now appears to be a dust cloud masquerading as a planet – the result of colliding planetesimals. While searching for Fomalhaut b in recent Hubble observations, scientists were surprised to find a second point of light at a similar location around the star. They call this object “circumstellar source 2” or “cs2” while the first object is now known as “cs1.”

Tackling mysteries of colliding planetesimals

Why astronomers are seeing both of these debris clouds so physically close to each other is a mystery. If the collisions between asteroids and planetesimals were random, cs1 and cs2 should appear by chance at unrelated locations. Yet, they are positioned intriguingly near each other along the inner portion of Fomalhaut’s outer debris disk.

Another mystery is why scientists have witnessed these two events within such a short timeframe. “Previous theory suggested that there should be one collision every 100 000 years, or longer. Here, in 20 years, we've seen two,” explained Paul. “If you had a movie of the last 3000 years, and it was sped up so that every year was a fraction of a second, imagine how many flashes you'd see over that time. Fomalhaut’s planetary system would be sparkling with these collisions.”

Collisions are fundamental to the evolution of planetary systems, but they are rare and difficult to study.

“The exciting aspect of this observation is that it allows researchers to estimate both the size of the colliding bodies and how many of them there are in the disk, information which is almost impossible to get by any other means,” said co-author Mark Wyatt at the University of Cambridge in England. “Our estimates put the planetesimals that were destroyed to create cs1 and cs2 at just 30 km in size, and we infer that there are 300 million such objects orbiting in the Fomalhaut system.”

“The system is a natural laboratory to probe how planetesimals behave when undergoing collisions, which in turn tells us about what they are made of and how they formed,” explained Mark.


https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Hubble_sees_asteroids_colliding_around_nearby_star#msdynmkt_trackingcontext=9f68c777-3474-4c5c-9845-63478dea0100

[Star One]

Hubble Spots Giant Vampire Sandwich?

[StraumliBlight]

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/2009007873200980291

One note from the STScI town hall at #AAS247 today: the median reentry date for Hubble, based on current modeling, is 2033; a <10% chance of reentry by 2029.

Geekwire: Orbital Robotics reaches out with a plan to build robotic arms that use AI [Jan 14]

Orbital Robotics is also recruiting partners for an effort to save the 35-year-old Hubble Space Telescope from a fiery, mission-ending descent. Kohl said he and his collaborators are working on a white paper about the project that would be reviewed by NASA experts as well as astronauts who participated in previous Hubble servicing missions.

The plan calls for building a robotic spacecraft that could attach itself to the telescope, install a star tracker package on its exterior, boost Hubble to a more stable orbit, and then undock.