2011

• 12/21/2011 STScI-2011-42 1. Distant Galaxy Bursts with Stars One of the most distant galaxies known, called GN-108036, dates back to 750 million years after the Big Bang that created our universe. The galaxy's light took 12.9 billion... (More)
• 12/19/2011 STScI-2011-41 2. Physicist and Former Astronaut John Grunsfeld to Head NASA Science Directorate NASA has named physicist and former astronaut John Grunsfeld as the new Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's... (More)
• 12/15/2011 STScI-2011-38 3. Hubble Serves Up a Holiday Snow Angel The bipolar star-forming region, called Sharpless 2-106, or S106 for short, looks like a soaring, celestial snow angel. The outstretched "wings"... (More)
• 12/6/2011 STScI-2011-40 4. Hubble Racks Up 10,000 Science Papers NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has passed another milestone in its 21 years of exploration: the 10,000th refereed science paper has been published. This makes Hubble one of the most prolific... (More)
• 12/5/2011 STScI-2011-39 5. Fastest Rotating Star Found in Neighboring Galaxy An international team of astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope have found the fastest spinning star ever discovered. VFTS 102 rotates... (More)
• 11/22/2011 STScI-2011-35 6. NASA's Hubble Finds Stellar Life and Death in a Globular Cluster A new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows globular cluster NGC 1846, a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands... (More)
• 11/17/2011 STScI-2011-37 7. NASA's Hubble Confirms that Galaxies Are the Ultimate Recyclers Galaxies learned to "go green" early in the history of the universe, continuously recycling immense volumes of hydrogen gas and heavy elements to build successive... (More)
• 11/10/2011 STScI-2011-31 8. Hubble Uncovers Tiny Galaxies Bursting with Star Birth in Early Universe Using its near-infrared vision to peer 9 billion years back in time, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered an extraordinary population... (More)
• 11/9/2011 STScI-2011-36 9. Was the Real Discovery of the Expanding Universe Lost in Translation? Writing in the Nov. 10 issue of the journal Nature, Space Telescope Science Institute astrophysicist Mario Livio solves the mystery of why paragraphs... (More)
• 10/27/2011 STScI-2011-30 10. Astronomers Pin Down Galaxy Collision Rate A new analysis of Hubble surveys, including the All-Wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey (AEGIS), the Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS), and the Great Observatories... (More)
• 10/13/2011 STScI-2011-25 11. Ambitious Hubble Survey Obtaining New Dark Matter Census Cluster MACS J1206.2-0847 (or MACS 1206 for short) is one of the first targets in a Hubble Space Telescope survey that will allow astronomers to construct... (More)
• 10/12/2011 STScI-2011-34 12. Giant Webb Space Telescope Model to "Land" in Baltimore Baltimore's Maryland Science Center is going to be the "landing site" for the full-scale model of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope... (More)
• 10/6/2011 STScI-2011-29 13. Astronomers Find Elusive Planets in Decade-Old Hubble Data In a painstaking re-analysis of Hubble Space Telescope images from 1998, astronomers have found visual evidence for two extrasolar planets that went undetected... (More)
• 10/4/2011 STScI-2011-33 14. Astrophysicist Adam Riess Wins the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics Adam Riess, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and Krieger-Eisenhower Professor in Physics and Astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University... (More)
• 9/29/2011 STScI-2011-28 15. Space Telescopes Reveal Secrets of Turbulent Black Hole An international team of astronomers using five different telescopes has uncovered striking features around a supermassive black hole in the core of the distant... (More)
• 9/22/2011 STScI-2011-32 16. Light Fantastic: Laser at Inner Harbor Beams Hubble's Heartbeat Beginning on Sunday, September 25 an outdoor laser exhibit at the Maryland Science Center will present a unique blend of astronomy and art. Hubble spectral... (More)
• 9/15/2011 STScI-2011-27 17. Even Low-Mass Galaxies Can Harbor Supermassive Black Holes Using the slitless grism on Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 to probe the distant universe, astronomers have found supermassive black holes growing... (More)
• 8/31/2011 STScI-2011-20 18. Hubble Movies Provide Unprecedented View of Supersonic Jets from Young Stars A team of scientists has collected enough high-resolution Hubble Space Telescope images over a 14-year period to stitch together time-lapse... (More)
• 8/25/2011 STScI-2011-26 19. Fast Falling Clouds Fuel Milky Way Star Formation The long-term forecast for the Milky Way is cloudy with gaseous rain. A study by Nicolas Lehner and Christopher Howk of the University of Notre Dame concludes... (More)
• 8/11/2011 STScI-2011-24 20. Hubble Offers a Dazzling View of the 'Necklace' Nebula A giant cosmic necklace glows brightly in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. The object, aptly named the Necklace Nebula, is a recently discovered planetary... (More)
• 7/20/2011 STScI-2011-23 21. NASA's Hubble Discovers Another Moon Around Pluto These two images, taken about a week apart by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, show four moons orbiting the distant, icy dwarf planet Pluto. The green circle in both snapshots... (More)
• 7/12/2011 STScI-2011-19 22. Neptune Completes Its First Circuit Around The Sun Since Its Discovery These four images of Neptune were taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope during the planet's 16-hour rotation. The snapshots were taken at roughly... (More)
• 7/5/2011 STScI-2011-22 23. NASA's Hubble Makes One Millionth Science Observation NASA's Hubble Space Telescope crossed another milestone in its 21-year space odyssey of exploration and discovery. On Monday, July 4, the Earth-orbiting observatory... (More)
• 6/22/2011 STScI-2011-17 24. Pandora's Cluster – Clash of the Titans A team of scientists studying the galaxy cluster Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora's Cluster, have pieced together the cluster's complex and violent history using telescopes... (More)
• 6/16/2011 STScI-2011-18 25. Firestorm of Star Birth in the Active Galaxy Centaurus A Resembling looming rain clouds on a stormy day, dark lanes of dust crisscross the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. Hubble's panchromatic vision... (More)
• 6/9/2011 STScI-2011-21 26. New Supernova Remnant Lights Up Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are witnessing the unprecedented transition of a supernova to a supernova remnant, where light from an exploding star in a neighboring... (More)
• 5/25/2011 STScI-2011-16 27. NASA's Hubble Finds Rare Blue Straggler Stars in the Milky Way's Hub Peering deep into the star-filled, ancient hub of our Milky Way (left), NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found a rare class of oddball... (More)
• 5/23/2011 STScI-2011-15 28. Hubble Views the Star that Changed the Universe Though the universe is filled with billions upon billions of stars, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has been trained on a single variable star that in 1923 altered... (More)
• 5/12/2011 STScI-2011-14 29. Galaxy NGC 4214: A Star-Formation Laboratory The dwarf galaxy NGC 4214 is ablaze with young stars and gas clouds. Located around 10 million light-years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs), the galaxy's... (More)
• 4/28/2011 STScI-2011-13 30. NASA's SWIFT and Hubble Probe Asteroid Collision Debris Late last year, astronomers noticed an asteroid named Scheila had unexpectedly brightened, and it was sporting short-lived plumes. Data from NASA's Swift satellite... (More)
• 4/20/2011 STScI-2011-11 31. NASA's Hubble Celebrates 21st Anniversary with "Rose" of Galaxies To celebrate the 21st anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's deployment into space, astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore... (More)
• 4/12/2011 STScI-2011-12 32. NASA Telescopes Help Discover Surprisingly Young Galaxy Astronomers have uncovered one of the youngest galaxies in the distant universe, with stars that formed 13.5 billion years ago, a mere 200 million years after the Big Bang. (More)
• 4/7/2011 STScI-2011-10 33. NASA Telescopes Join Forces to Observe Unprecedented Explosion NASA's Swift satellite, Hubble Space Telescope, and Chandra X-ray Observatory have teamed up to study one of the most puzzling cosmic blasts ever observed. (More)
• 3/29/2011 STScI-2011-09 34. Space Telescope Science Institute Announces the 2011 Hubble Fellows The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) announces today the selection of 17 new candidates for the Hubble Fellowship Program. This is one of the three prestigious... (More)
• 3/14/2011 STScI-2011-08 35. NASA's Hubble Rules Out One Alternative to Dark Energy Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have ruled out an alternate theory on the nature of dark energy after recalculating the expansion... (More)
• 2/18/2011 STScI-2011-07 36. Astrophysicist Adam Riess Wins the 2011 Einstein Medal Adam Riess, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and a professor in physics and astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University, today was awarded... (More)
• 2/17/2011 STScI-2011-06 37. Hubble Shows New Image of Spiral Galaxy NGC 2841 NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a majestic disk of stars and dust lanes in this view of the spiral galaxy NGC 2841, which lies 46 million light-years... (More)
• 1/26/2011 STScI-2011-05 38. NASA's Hubble Finds Most Distant Galaxy Candidate Ever Seen in Universe How far is far? And, when do you know when you get there? This is not a Dr. Seuss riddle, but the ultimate "final frontier" confronting astronomers. (More)
• 1/13/2011 STScI-2011-03 39. The Two-faced Whirlpool Galaxy These images by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show off two dramatically different face-on views of the spiral galaxy M51, dubbed the Whirlpool Galaxy. ... (More)
• 1/12/2011 STScI-2011-04 40. In Deep Galaxy Surveys, Astronomers Get a Boost -- from Gravity Astronomers are finding that the idiom "can't see the forest for the trees" applies to the universe of galaxies as well. In a paper published... (More)
• 1/10/2011 STScI-2011-01 41. Hubble Zooms in on a Space Oddity A ghostly, glowing, green blob of gas has become one of astronomy's great cosmic mystery stories. The space oddity was spied in 2007 by Dutch high-school teacher... (More)
• 1/10/2011 STScI-2011-02 42. NASA's Hubble Finds that Puny Stars Pack a Big Punch A survey of more than 200,000 stars in our Milky Way galaxy has unveiled the sometimes petulant behavior of tiny dwarf stars. (More)