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.

    
    

[staytrue]

almost all the stars in the galaxy center is unsuitable for life because there are too many collisions going on.

plus, we know the dinosaurs were around for about 300 million years and never developed technology so it is a good bet that it takes life more than 300 million years of habitable conditions to develope it.

I suspect that we are nearly unique in the milky way for having technology. There might be 1 or 2 others at most.

[PC99]

Of course, according to our friends at the Discovery Institue, all of this was created 6,000 years ago, so by that logic the light from these objects shouldn’t have traveled to us yet.

[COBOL2Java]

Of course, according to our friends at the Discovery Institue, all of this was created 6,000 years ago, so by that logic the light from these objects shouldn’t have traveled to us yet.

[chuckle]

[COBOL2Java]

One of my favorite Discovery Channel productions: Alien Planet.

[21twelve]

I did a layman’s guest sermon using that photo as a back drop - 4’x8’ !! Very amazing. Linked it to the idea of the folks in the Biblical era looking up at the stars and saying “how wonderful and powerful is God”. Some folks say science has proven that there is no God. I look at science and think “man - God is even more wonderful and powerful!” But, that’s just me! Thanks for the amazing photo - which also shows how powerful humans are!

[Lockbar]

I was thinking that it would fun to bring guys like Isaac Newton and Galileo back for an afternoon and show them everything that has been found.

[Boxen]

Hubble Ultra Deep Field:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra_Deep_Field

[never4get]

...could be very true.

[JoJo Gunn]

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

Horseplop.

In all the Universe, there never was before, and there never will again be another me. 

[puppypusher]

After seeing photo’s like that you have to know that there is a god.

[Pyro7480]

Does that organization actually take that position, or are you just applying creationism to them?

[COBOL2Java]

Cone Nebula

Its Inhabitants

[staytrue]

One of my favorite Discovery Channel productions: Alien Planet.

Okay, but are they illegal aliens or legal aliens on the planet ?

[never4get]

In all the Universe, there never was before, and there never will again be another me.

I am sure a young being named j23 living on the planet Gorgon-Minra some 250 light years from earth is thinking the same thing as the moon that has been circling his planet for 100 billion years, after being struck by a renegade asteroid, is about to crash into his planet's northern hemisphere and destroy all life on his planet as he knows it...Yes, yes, he is thinking right now there is no-one else in the universe as unique as JoJo Gunn on that weird blue/green planet, 3rd rock from the sun, some 250 light years away.

[TheMom]

Cool pictures ping.

[COBOL2Java]

Oooh, good point! Perhaps the program will need to be retitled “Undocumented Extraterrestrials”.. :-)

[Robe]

Save that picture to your desk top, open it with a graphic application , rotate it 90* to the right and have a look.. there is a man seated in a great chair...

[divine_moment_of_facts]

I see it! A fat guy with a bulbous nose and a beard.

[thefrankbaum]

This might make up for the Gorebull Warming APOTD...

[divine_moment_of_facts]

That is perfect!

This Isn't deep space, but it is an all time favorite of mine.. Flagstaff, AZ