Hubble tagged posts

Showcased at the center of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is an emission-line star known as IRAS 12196-6300.

Located just under 2,300 light-years from Earth, this star displays prominent emission lines, meaning that the star’s light, dispersed into a spectrum, shows up as a rainbow of colors marked with a characteristic pattern of dark and bright lines. The characteristics of these lines, when compared to the “fingerprints” left by particular atoms and molecules, can be used to reveal IRAS12196-6300’s chemical composition.

Under 10 million years old and not yet burning hydrogen at its core, unlike the sun, this star is still in its infancy. Further evidence of IRAS 12196-6300’s youth is provided by the presence of reflection nebulae...

Hubble Frontier Fields view of MACSJ0416.1–2403 Credit: NASA, ESA and the HST Frontier Fields team (STScI)

Observations have taken advantage of gravitational lensing to reveal the largest sample of the faintest and earliest known galaxies in the Universe. Some of these galaxies formed just 600 million years after the Big Bang and are fainter than any other galaxy yet uncovered by Hubble. The team has determined, for the 1st time that these small galaxies were vital to creating the Universe that we see today.

Hakim Atek’s team has discovered >250 tiny galaxies that existed only 600-900 million years after the Big Bang,one of the largest samples of dwarf galaxies yet to be discovered at these epochs...