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Distant Supernova 1 - After Outburst   Supernova Blast Bonanza in Nearby Galaxy  The nearby dwarf galaxy NGC 1569 is a hotbed of vigorous star birth activity, which blows huge bubbles that riddle the galaxy's main body. Grains of cosmic sand  Myriads of stars embedded in the heart of the nearby galaxy NGC 300 can be singled out like grains of sand on a beach in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The Hubble telescope's exquisite resolution enables it to see the stars as individual points of light, despite the fact that the galaxy is millions of light-years away.<BR><BR>NGC 300 is a spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way galaxy. It is a member of a nearby group of galaxies known as the Sculptor group, named for the southern constellation where the group can be found. The distance to NGC 300 is 6.5 million light-years, making it one of the Milky Way's closer neighbors. At this distance, only the brightest stars can be picked out from ground-based images. With a resolution some 10 times better than ground-based telescopes, Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys(ACS) resolves many more stars in this galaxy than can be detected from the ground.<BR><BR>The color composite was made from filtered images taken in blue, green, and infrared light. Hot, young blue stars appear in clusters that form in the galaxy's spiral arms. Ribbons of deep red stars mark the location of gauzy curtains of dust that partially hide the light of the stars behind them. Near the center of the image is the bright and compact nucleus of the galaxy where even the ACS loses the ability to separate the densely packed stars.<BR><BR>The individual exposures that were combined to make this new image were taken in July and September 2002. These Hubble data are being used to test a new method for measuring distances to galaxies and to compare it with the more traditional methods, such as the period-luminosity relationship of pulsating stars known as Cepheid variables. Measuring distances is a perpetual but important concern for astronomers.<BR><BR>Some of the luminous blue specks in this image, young and massive stars called blue supergiants, are among the brightest stars seen in spiral galaxies like NGC 300. By combining the stellar brightness with other information, such as the stellar temperature, surface gravity and mass outflow, astronomers are defining a new technique to measure distances to galaxies located millions of light-years away.
The constellation Sagittarius  The constellation Sagittarius (the Archer), home to the globular cluster M22, is one of the best known constellations in the sky. Sagittarius contains a large number of famous nebulae and star clusters due to the presence of some of the richest star fields of the Milky Way. The very center of the Milky Way lies in the direction of Sagittarius. Some of the brighter stars in Sagittarius are known as the Teapot, the shape of which is indicated by the lines here (handle to the left, spout to the right). Quasar 3C 273   image of sky  
Hubble Deep Field South--Multiple Windows on the Universe  The deepest visible/ultraviolet light image of the universe ever taken, revealing galaxies down to 30th magnitude. Glaring fiercely across 12 billion light-years of space is the brilliant beacon of a distant quasar (z=2.2). Most of the galaxies in this view lie between us and the quasar. The image was taken with the camera on the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS). The STIS recorded how numerous invisible intervening clouds of hydrogen gas affected the quasar's light. Some of the galaxies in the image may be linked to these clouds. Hubble sees stars as numerous as grains of sand in nearby galaxy  Hubble sees stars as numerous as grains of sand in nearby galaxy<BR><BR>Myriads of stars embedded in the heart of the nearby galaxy NGC 300 can be singled out like grains of sand on a beach in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The Hubble telescope's exquisite resolution enables it to see the stars as individual points of light, despite the fact that the galaxy is millions of light-years away.<BR><BR>NGC 300 is a spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way galaxy. It is a member of a nearby group of galaxies known as the Sculptor group, named for the southern constellation where the group can be found. The distance to NGC 300 is 6.5 million light-years, making it one of the Milky Way's closer neighbors. At this distance, only the brightest stars can be picked out from ground-based images. With a resolution some 10 times better than ground-based telescopes, Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys(ACS) resolves many more stars in this galaxy than can be detected from the ground.<BR><BR>The color composite was made from filtered images taken in blue, green, and infrared light. Hot, young blue stars appear in clusters that form in the galaxy's spiral arms. Ribbons of deep red stars mark the location of gauzy curtains of dust that partially hide the light of the stars behind them. Near the center of the image is the bright and compact nucleus of the galaxy where even the ACS loses the ability to separate the densely packed stars.<BR><BR>The individual exposures that were combined to make this new image were taken in July and September 2002. These Hubble data are being used to test a new method for measuring distances to galaxies and to compare it with the more traditional methods, such as the period-luminosity relationship of pulsating stars known as Cepheid variables. Measuring distances is a perpetual but important concern for astronomers.<BR><RB>Some of the luminous blue specks in this image, young and massive stars called blue supergiants, are among the brightest stars seen in spiral galaxies like NGC 300. By combining the stellar brightness with other information, such as the stellar temperature, surface gravity and mass outflow, astronomers are defining a new technique to measure distances to galaxies located millions of light-years away. Starbirth  
Starbirth in the Early Universe  This Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image shows rich detail, previously only seen in neighboring star birth regions, in a pair of star clusters 166, 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), in the southern constellation Doradus. The field of view is 130 light-years across and was taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. A Three-Ringed Circus  This Hubble Space Telescope image, taken in February 1994 with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, shows the full system of three rings of glowing gas surrounding supernova 1987A. Located in a small galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud, the supernova is a massive star that exploded in about 165,000 BC, but its light didn't arrive here until February 1987. Jet from Young Star  Tip to tip, this jet spans slightly more than a light-year. The fountainhead of this structure -- the young star -- lies midway between the jet, and is hidden from view behind a dark cloud of dust. The nearly symmetrical blobs of gas at either end are where the jet has slammed into interstellar gas.
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