Hubble spies on Saturn for a colorful change of seasons

The Orion Nebula is located 1,500 light-years from Earth and is located in Orion’s Belt in the constellation Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae – and on a clear, dark night it is visible to the naked eye. The nebula is the closest star-forming region to Earth.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990 from the space shuttle Discovery.

Hubble has given us many images of our neighbor Mars. This photo was taken in 2003 when Mars reached its closest approach in nearly 60,000 years. On August 27, 2003, the two worlds were only 34.6 million miles from center to center. Mars, on the other hand, may be about 249 million miles from Earth.

Hubble took this photo of Ganymede in 2007 that appeared to be peeking out from beneath Jupiter. Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system and even bigger than Mercury.

Hubble took this image of Saturn in 2004, an image so sharp that some of the planet’s smaller rings are visible.

Hubble tracked the clouds on Uranus in this 1997 photo. The photo is a composite of three near-infrared images. The planet’s rings are prominent in the near infrared. Both images show eight of the 27 moons of Uranus. Uranus is about 1.75 billion miles from Earth.

Hubble captured this image of the distant blue-green world of Neptune in 2005. Fourteen different colored filters were used to help scientists learn more about Neptune’s atmosphere. Neptune is about 4.5 billion miles from Earth.

Hubble discovered four of Pluto’s five moons. In 2005: Nix and Hydra were found. Hubble discovered Kerberos in 2011 and Styx in 2012. The new discoveries joined Pluto’s large moon, Charon, which was discovered in 1978. Styx was found by scientists using Hubble to search for possible dangers to the New Horizons spacecraft that flew off Pluto in July 2015. Pluto is about 2.9 billion miles from Earth.

The iconic Horsehead Nebula is a favorite target for astronomers. Look closely and you will see what looks like a horse’s head rising into the stars. This Hubble image captures the nebula in infrared wavelengths. The nebula is 1,600 light-years from Earth.

The Cat’s Eye Nebula is a set of glowing gases kicked into space by a dying star. This Hubble Space Telescope image shows details of structures, including high-speed gas jets and unusual gas nodes. This color photo is a composite of three images taken at different wavelengths. The nebula is estimated to be 1,000 years old. It is about 3,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Draco.

The Insect or Butterfly Nebula looks like a butterfly with its wings extending across the galaxy. It’s actually a cloud of swirling gas thrown off by a dying star. Scientists say the gas is over 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit and is expanding into space at more than 600,000 miles per hour. This photo was taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, a camera installed on Hubble by shuttle astronauts during the May 2009 upgrade. The nebula is located about 3,800 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius.

Astronomers combined several Hubble images taken in 2014 to create an enhanced representation of Hubble’s iconic 1995 “Pillars of Creation” image. The new image shows a broader view of the pillars, which extend about 5 light-years high. The pillars are part of a small region of the Eagle Nebula approximately 6,500 light-years from Earth.

This enormous nebula is located 7,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Carina. It is one of the largest and brightest nebulae and is a breeding ground for new stars. It also has several stars estimated to be at least 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun, including Eta Carinae, one of the brightest stars known and one of the most massive stars in the Milky Way.

One of the closest neighbors to our own Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy, can be seen with the naked eye if you know where to look on a clear, dark night. In 2012, scientists using data from Hubble predicted that Andromeda would collide with the Milky Way in about four billion years. Andromeda is 2.5 million light years from Earth.

The cigar galaxy is 12 million light years away. It gets its name from its shape: from Earth it looks like an elongated elliptical disk.

Called one of the most photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero galaxy looks like the giant wide brim of a Mexican hat sitting among the stars. It can be observed with a small telescope. It is about 28 million light years from Earth.

This group of galaxies is about 290 million light years from Earth. It is named after its discoverer, French astronomer Edouard Stephan, who first saw it in 1877.

Hubble captured this image of a group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. The larger galaxy has a central disk that has been deformed into a rose-like shape by the pull of its partner beneath it.

In 2004, astronomers unveiled the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever taken. Called the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, the million-second exposure time shows the first galaxies to appear shortly after the Big Bang. The image shows an estimated 10,000 galaxies. In 2012, astronomers compiled an enhanced image called the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field. It combined 10 years of Hubble Space Telescope photos taken of a slice of sky in the center of the original Hubble Ultra-Deep Field. The new image contains approximately 5,500 galaxies.

This 2018 Hubble image shows the Lagoon Nebula, a chaotic nursery full of baby stars. In the center of this image, a young star 200,000 times brighter than our sun is emitting ultraviolet rays.

Even stars like to blow bubbles. This 2016 image shares Hubble’s view of the Bubble Nebula, where a super-hot, massive star blasts a giant bubble into space. The nebula is 7 light years across.

The Cone Nebula is a turbulent star-forming pillar of gas and dust. It is 7 light years long, but this image, taken by Hubble in 2002, shows the top 2.5 light years (equivalent to 23 million round trips to the moon). Ultraviolet radiation causes the hydrogen gas to give off an eerie red glow.

This is a detailed view of the section of a slowly expanding supernova, or the remains of an exploded star. Hubble took this 2015 image of the Veil Nebula 2,100 light-years away. The star was once 20 times as massive as our Sun, but only scraps of gas remain.

In 2009, NASA’s Great Observatories, including Hubble along with the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, combined their powers of observation to create this unprecedented composite image of the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Infrared and X-ray light captured by the telescopes can be seen here. Hubble’s contributions are in yellow, Spitzer’s observations are in red, and Chandra’s are blue and violet.

Hubble also teamed up with Spitzer to create this stunning image of the Orion Nebula in 2006. The image combines visible, infrared and ultraviolet light. A community of massive stars is represented by the yellow in the center of the image.

Hubble captured this image of an expanding halo of light around the star V838 Monocerotis in 2004.

M83 is a nearby spiral galaxy, and this Hubble image from 2014 shows thousands of clusters of stars and supernova remnants. The young stars can be seen in pink bubbles of hydrogen gas.

This infrared light photo taken by Hubble in 2014 shows the Monkey Head Nebula, where star birth is 6,400 light-years away. Dust clouds and glowing gas swirl together here, representing the ingredients for star formation.

This ultraviolet light observation of the giant Eta Carinae star was taken by Hubble in 2019. The star is the larger of two orbiting each other. It is known to have violent eruptions, as evidenced by the bubbles here.

Fireworks are even more beautiful in space. Hubble captured this image of a giant cluster of 3,000 stars in 2015. It’s called Westerlund 2, located 20,000 light-years from Earth.