Astronomers Select Top Ten Most Amazing Pictures Taken by Hubble Space Telescope in Last 16 Years

email ^ | 21 April 2009 | email

[COBOL2Java]

Hubble telescope’s top ten greatest space photographs

“…they illustrate that our universe is not only deeply strange, but also almost impossibly beautiful.” Michael Hanlon/AH (Nov 25th, 2006) After correcting an initial problem with the lens, when the Hubble Space Telescope was first launched in 1990, the floating astro-observatory began to relay back to Earth, incredible snapshots of the “final frontier” it was perusing.

Recently, astronauts voted on the top photographs taken by Hubble, in its 16-year journey so far. Remarking in the article from the Daily Mail, reporter Michael Hanlon says the photos “illustrate that our universe is not only deeply strange, but also almost impossibly beautiful.”

1. The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - was voted best picture taken by the Hubble telescope. The dimensions of the galaxy, officially called M104, are as spectacular as its appearance. It has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across.
   
2. The Ant Nebula, a cloud of dust and gas whose technical name is Mz3, resembles an ant when observed using ground-based telescopes. The nebula lies within our galaxy between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth.

   
   

3. Nebula NGC 2392, called Eskimo because it looks like a face surrounded by a furry hood. The hood is, in fact, a ring of comet-shaped objects flying away from a dying star. Eskimo is 5,000 light years from Earth.

   
   

4. Cat’s Eye Nebula

   
   

5. The Hourglass Nebula, 8,000 light years away, has a pinched-in-the-middle look because the winds that shape it are weaker at the centre.

   
   

6. Cone Nebula. The part pictured here is 2.5 light years in length (the equivalent of 23 million return trips to the Moon)

   
   

7. The Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, 5,500 light years away, described as ‘a bubbly ocean of hydrogen and small amounts of oxygen, sulphur and other elements’.

   
   

8. Starry Night, so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way.

   
   

9. The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation.

   
   

10. The Trifid Nebula. A ’stellar nursery’, 9,000 light years from here, it is where new stars are being born.

    
    

[cripplecreek]

My choices are a toss up between the sombrero galaxy and anything to do with the pillars of creation.

[divine_moment_of_facts]

"It's so very lonely, you're 10,000 light years from home.."

My favorite is this one..

[SouthDixie]

I like #10 Trifid Nebula - where new stars are born... thanks for the photographs.

[wastedyears]

[jaydubya2]

Do you have links to the High Rez pictures?

[the long march]

Nicely done

[GeronL]

that is all wrong.

the best photo was one of an apparently empty expanse of space, a long exposure... and when it was done they found an image of thousands of galaxies. Thousands of Galaxies.

The most amazing image ever.

[wombtotomb]

do you have it? Can you post a link? I love these photos!!

[GeronL]

Deep View

[GeronL]

let me search NASA site

[GeronL]

Here is an old link to Hubblesite:

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1996/01/image/a/

[tx_eggman]

the best photo was one of an apparently empty expanse of space, a long exposure... and when it was done they found an image of thousands of galaxies. Thousands of Galaxies.

The most amazing image ever.

This one .. the field represents a portion of sky that a dime would cover if held at arms length. Almost every one of those lights is a galaxy.

[never4get]

After seeing these photos how can anyone believe there is no God. Absolutely beautiful and amazing. In the grand scheme of things we are rather insignificant as things go.

[GeronL]

That tells me there might very well be billions of galaxies out there, who knows how many quadrillion stars exist? If 1% have Earth-like worlds and 1% of those have some sort of life and 1% of those have a world capable of supporting cmoplex, intelligent life....

wow.... its still a huge number.

[COBOL2Java]

LOL! I THOUGHT that image looked familiar!

[wombtotomb]

That is stunning. Thanks for posting!

[colinhester]

Bump for later. Thanks for posting.....C

[Carbon Helix]

"This most beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." - Sir Isaac Newton

[frog in a pot]

“In the grand scheme of things we are rather insignificant as things go.”

Perhaps.
But then, because we are so unique, it may be “we” are most significant.