Hubblethe space telescope of the NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), celebrated its 33rd anniversary this week since it was launched aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1990 and did leaving us a new and impressive image.
Since the early 1990s, the telescope has performed more than 1.6 million important observations and discoveries that have allowed scientists to investigate and better understand the universe.
as you remember 20 BitsAmong his most important findings are the detection of planet-forming disks around nearby stars, the chemical exploration of atmospheres of planets from other systems, the first supermassive black hole in a neighboring galaxy, and the evidence of an accelerating universe.
The telescope continues to be operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute and managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and continues to be an international project in which NASA and ESA are working together to explore the cosmos.
The 33rd anniversary photo
To celebrate Hubble’s 33rd anniversary, the telescope’s monitoring team has captured an ethereal image of the region near star formation NGC 1333.
The nebula is located in the Perseus Molecular Cloud, about 960 light years distant from Earth. The photograph, taken in ultraviolet and near-infrared light, shows glowing gases and black dust, as well as hundreds of young stars within the dark cloud.
The telescope had to look through a veil of dust at the edge of a huge cloud of cold molecular hydrogen to capture the image. This raw material is responsible for creating new stars and planets with the help of gravitational attraction.
NASA highlights the presence of stellar winds coming from a blue star visible at the top of the image, as well as another bright star at the bottom seen through filaments of dark dust. A reddish glow from ionized hydrogen was also captured among the dark dust cloud, created by thin jets shooting out of newly formed stars outside the frame of view.
The image used for Hubble’s birthday is an example of how the Sun and the solar system formed inside a molecular cloud 4.6 million years ago. Our star was not created in isolation, but was part of something similar to what is seen in NGC 1333.
