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Enlarge Image Breathing fire. A distant cosmic explosion detected 28 March (left) continues to put out a series of high-energy flares (right). Astronomers believe it's a star being consumed by a black hole 3.8 billion light-years away. Credit: (left, galaxy) ASA/Swift/Stefan Immler; (right, diagram) NASA/Swift/Penn State/J. Kennea Astronomers have observed possibly the biggest blast ever seen in the cosmos. When NASA's SWIFT space observatory first spotted it 10 days ago, observers thought it was a massive star blowing up as a supernova and expected it to fade within hours or even minutes. But the high-energy radiation from the source...

Our Universe is an enormous place; that’s no secret. What is up for discussion, however, is just how enormous it is. And new research suggests it’s a whopper – over 250 times the size of our observable universe. Currently, cosmologists believe the Universe takes one of three possible shapes: It is flat, like a Euclidean plane, and spatially infinite.It is open, or curved like a saddle, and spatially infinite.It is closed, or curved like a sphere, and spatially finite. While most current data favors a flat universe, cosmologists have yet to come to a consensus. In a paper recently submitted...

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have peered further back in time than ever before, spotting a galaxy that formed less than 500 million years after the birth of our universe, making it the oldest and most distant ever seen. The find, reported today (Jan. 26) in the journal Nature, should help astronomers better understand the early days of the universe, researchers said. In particular, the discovery should shed light on the evolution of early galaxies, which first formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang."In essence, the most important aspect of this is, it provides us...

NASA is expected to announce a new discovery by researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope on Wednesday (Jan. 26). The space agency has scheduled a teleconference with reporters for 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT) on Wednesday to announce and discuss the finding, which will also be published that day in the journal Nature. "Astronomers have pushed the Hubble Space Telescope to its limits and have seen further back in time than ever before," NASA said in an announcement posted on its website today (Jan. 21). Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live on the space agency's website, according to...

NASA is expected to announce a new discovery by researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope on Wednesday (Jan. 26). The space agency has scheduled a teleconference with reporters for 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT) on Wednesday to announce and discuss the finding, which will also be published that day in the journal Nature. "Astronomers have pushed the Hubble Space Telescope to its limits and have seen further back in time than ever before," NASA said in an announcement posted on its website today (Jan. 21). Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live on the space agency's website, according to...

WASHINGTON – The Hubble Space Telescope got its first peek at a mysterious giant green blob in outer space and found that it's strangely alive. The bizarre glowing blob is giving birth to new stars, some only a couple million years old, in remote areas of the universe where stars don't normally form.

Best Art in the Universe? Hubble Space Telescope's Amazing Pics From 2010 (Dec. 15) -- You might think that taking highly detailed photographs of the darkest corners of the universe would be a purely scientific job. Turns out, there's an art to it. For the past 20 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been orbiting the planet and wowing earthlings with breathtaking images of outer space, from jaw-dropping pictures of clusters of newborn stars to fantastic photos of colliding galaxies. But it's not just Hubble's cutting-edge optics that are responsible for these stunning photographs. Behind each image is the hard...

http://news.discovery.com/space/hubble-spots-ghostly-space-spiral.html

Storms on Jupiter For more than 300 years, Jupiter’s gaseous atmosphere has hosted a gigantic storm known has the Giant Red Spot. Then in 2006, another red storm appeared and produced what appeared to be a few other whitish storm spots. When Hubble snapped this image in 2008, astronomers were surprised to discover that a third red storm spot had appeared. They speculate that this storm outbreak is due to a large climate shift on Jupiter . What's being sucked up into these storms or what causes them is still unknown.

A scorched alien planet is flying so close to its parent star that its atmosphere is being swept off it in a glowing tail like some sort of giant comet, NASA announced Thursday. The existence of the planet and its strange tail, which was suggested in previous studies, was confirmed recently by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. These new observations of the gas giant planet, called HD 209458b, suggest strong winds from its nearby star are blowing the atmosphere off the scorched world and shaping it into a comet-like tail. "Since 2003 scientists have theorized the lost mass is being pushed...

Really cool video about what exists in the blackness of space, and just how many stars and galaxies there are... Really cool animations as well!

Up on Drudge right now (7:40 pm CST):

Tomorrow, April 24, marks twenty years since the Hubble Space Telescope, with the help of he space shuttle and crew of STS-31 were launched to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope into a low Earth orbit, what took place afterwards is NOW HISTORY and part of the twenty years of EXCELLENCE for the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA has released images of a mysterious x-shaped UFO travelling at super-fast speeds that was picked up by the Hubble space telescope. The object is unlike any ever seen before, Scientists quick to discount any involvement of any extraterrestrial civilization have come up with the dubious and according to some, baseless theory that the UFO is the aftermath of a collision between two comets. It should be noted that no previous hypothetical testing of this scenario has ever predicted an object shaped as such as the outcome of such an event. Many ufologists are more inclined to believe that this...

A new image of the bulge at the center of a distant spiral galaxy, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is giving astronomers insight into how these galactic paunches form. The image of NGC 4710 is part of a survey that astronomers have conducted to learn more about the formation of bulges, which are a substantial component of most spiral galaxies. When targeting spiral galaxy bulges, astronomers often seek edge-on galaxies, as their bulges are more easily distinguishable from the disc. The detailed edge-on view of NGC 4710, taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, shows the galaxy's bulge in...

Just heard on FoxNews. Former Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu (shoo) is headed for a lengthy prison sentence after his conviction for violating campaign finance laws. Story still developing.

As America prepares to embark upon a new era of human space exploration, President Obama has commissioned a review of the nation’s human space flight plans. Known as the Augustine Committee, this panel has the important charter of evaluating the current NASA plan... Exploration must be recognized as a national imperative that sustains U.S. leadership in space; a significant increase in human space-flight safety should be accomplished under government leadership; we must leave low Earth orbit and explore destinations beyond; and sustaining robust funding and staying the course are imperative... ...Members of the committee presented their preliminary findings to NASA...

The Butterfly Nebula from Upgraded Hubble Explanation: The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for flowers or insects, and NGC 6302 is no exception. With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees C, the central star of this particular planetary nebula is exceptionally hot though -- shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust. Above is a dramatically detailed close-up of the dying star's nebula recorded by the newly upgraded Hubble Space Telescope. Cutting across a bright cavity of ionized gas, the dust torus surrounding...

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is back in business, ready to uncover new worlds, peer ever deeper into space, and even map the invisible backbone of the universe. The first snapshots from the refurbished Hubble showcase the 19-year-old telescope's new vision. Topping the list of exciting new views are colorful multi-wavelength pictures of far-flung galaxies, a densely packed star cluster, an eerie "pillar of creation," and a "butterfly" nebula. With its new imaging camera, Hubble can view galaxies, star clusters, and other objects across a wide swath of the electromagnetic spectrum, from ultraviolet to near-infrared light. A new spectrograph slices across...

WASHINGTON – A refurbished Hubble Space Telescope is showing Earth the sharpest photos yet of cosmic beauty, complete with heavenly glows. NASA on Wednesday unveiled the first deep space photos taken by Hubble since its billion dollar repair mission last spring. That work included installing two new cameras, other science instruments and replacing broken parts. The images of galaxies and nebulas are sharper than previous photos taken of the same places by Hubble before the upgrade. Some of the colorful images have brilliant glows of light that give them halos that to some people can appear heavenly.