Sinister Security: Hubble

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Captures Image Of Largest And Hottest Galaxy Ever Found

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For the first time, NASA and ESA's Hubble space telescope has captured a close-up image of a unique galaxy cluster considered to be the largest, hottest, and brightest ever discovered by astronomers. These clusters, which are held together by gravity, are the biggest objects in the distant Universe. They take billions of years to form as smaller groups of galaxies gradually move closer to each other.

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The recently photographed cluster, officially known as ACT-CLJ0102-4915, was first discovered in 2012 through observations from ESO's Very Large Telescope, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. It was found lying approximately 9.7 billion light years away from the Earth.

Discovery of the Galaxy Cluster El Gordo

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In 2012, astronomers discovered a cluster of twin galaxies colliding at an unimaginable speed. It was so massive that it earned the nickname El Gordo or "The Fat One.”

At that time, astronomers identified the cluster to consist of two separate galaxies colliding at a speed of millions of kilometers per hour but its origin remains a mystery. Little is still known to this day about such phenomenon, except that it relies heavily on dark matter and dark energy. A rough estimate of its mass was determined but more precise data has only been obtained in 2014 by astronomers using the Hubble.

Data from the Hubble shows the cluster is actually 43 percent more robust than previously thought, with a mass three million billion times more than the Earth's Sun. Because of this, it was given the nickname El Gordo which means "The Fat One" in Spanish.

Astronomers used the space telescope's high-resolution feature to measure the cluster's weak lensing. Such phenomenon occurs when the object's surrounding space is distorted like a funhouse mirror, warping images of background galaxies. The more intense the warping, the more distinct the cluster's mass becomes.

“What I did is basically look at the shapes of the background galaxies that are farther away than the cluster itself,” says James Jee of the University of California at Davis, who served as lead author of the 2014 study. “It's given us an even stronger probability that this is really an amazing system very early in the universe.”

The recent image, according to NASA's report, was taken by the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide-Field Camera 3 under the observation program called RELICS, which stands for Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey. To date, the program has already photographed 41 massive galaxy clusters with the aim of discovering bright, distant galaxies to be studied by the James Webb Space Telescope which is launching in 2019.

Weak Lensing and the Primitive Galaxy SPT0615-JD

NASA recently used weak lensing to also photograph the embryonic galaxy known as SPT0615-JD, which existed when the Universe was only 500 million years old. Although a few other primitive galaxies have already been found, they only appeared as red dots in captured images because of their small size and immense distance from the Earth.

In the case of SPT0615-JD, however, the foreground galaxy's gravitational field did not only amplify the brightness of the background galaxy but also warped its image into an arc.

“No other candidate galaxy has been found at such a great distance that also gives you the spatial information that this arc image does. By analyzing the effects of gravitational lensing on the image of this galaxy, we can determine its actual size and shape,” says Brett Salmon of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

SPT0615-JD was also identified under RELICS and its partnering S-RELICS Spritzer program. Its discovery was announced on Jan. 11 while the El Gordo's image was released on Jan. 16.

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The Hubble Space Telescope is Falling Towards the Earth

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Since 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has been redefining how we view our Universe. From hundreds of miles above the surface of the Earth, it orbits the entire world every 97 minutes. Multiple servicing missions, including the final one in 2009, have corrected its optics, enhanced its cameras, replaced worn-out parts, and boosted it to higher orbits.

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With the decommissioning of the space shuttle, however, the telescope that changed the world is now looking ahead to its inevitable end-of-life. Even if the fine-guidance sensors never fail; even if the reaction wheels remain operational; even if the communications equipment never dies, Hubble is in trouble. It's presently falling back towards Earth, and there are no plans in place to stop its orbital decay.

When a spacecraft re-enters Earth's atmosphere, it almost always inevitably breaks up into many pieces. If the deorbiting isn't done in a controlled fashion, the debris could land over populated areas, causing catastrophic damage.

Hubble is currently orbiting Earth at a mean altitude of 353 miles, or 568 kilometers. We typically define the border between Earth's atmosphere and outer space as 60 miles (about 100 kilometers) up, but in reality the situation is far more complicated. The atmosphere never truly ends, but simply gets more and more diffuse the higher up you go, with atoms and molecules that are gravitationally bound to the Earth extending to altitudes up to 10,000 km (6,200 miles). Beyond that point, the Earth's atmosphere is indistinguishable from the solar wind, with both consisting of tenuous, hot atoms and ionized particles.

The layers of Earth's atmosphere, as shown here to scale, go up far higher than the typically-defined boundary of space. Every object in low-Earth orbit is subject to atmospheric drag at some level.

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Although the overwhelming majority of our atmosphere (by mass) is contained in the lowest layers, with the troposphere containing 75% of Earth's atmopshere, the stratosphere containing another 20%, and the mesosphere containing almost all of the remaining 5%. Beyond that, atmospheric drag drops off significantly, and long-term orbits are possible. From space, those lowest three layers are the only ones that are optically visible, with most satellites in low-Earth orbit being located above them all: in the thermosphere. Up at these incredible altitudes, a typical atmospheric molecule (of oxygen, for instance) might travel for a kilometer or more before colliding with another one.

The troposphere (orange), stratosphere (white), and mesosphere (blue) are where the overwhelming majority of the molecules in Earth's atmosphere lie. But beyond that, air is still present, causing satellites to fall and eventually de-orbit if left alone.

But the Hubble Space Telescope is much larger than an oxygen molecule, and is moving much more quickly than one, too. Moving at about 5 miles per second, it collides with these high-altitude air molecules on a continuous basis, with each collision stripping it of a tiny, imperceptible bit of speed. Over the course of an hour, a day, or even a month, the changes aren't noticeable. Give it enough time, though, and those changes add up to something big. The loss of altitude and speed means that, very slowly, Hubble will start to spiral closer to Earth.

Which is too bad, because the science we've not only gotten, but continue to get from Hubble, is unlike anything else in human history. As the observatory falls to lower altitudes, collisions with air molecules become more frequent, accelerating the process. Additionally, it's an uneven effect, as Hubble spends half of every 97 minutes in sunlight and half in darkness, which will cause the highly asymmetrical Hubble Space Telescope to begin to tumble. If we do nothing, these drag forces will add up until Hubble becomes a fireball in the atmosphere, disintegrating into a multitude of parts and experiencing what's known as an "uncontrolled entry." The telescope is far too big to simply burn up, and the fiery debris could literally land anywhere.

An uncontrolled re-entry, as illustrated here, could cause large, massive chunks to land pretty much anywhere on Earth. Heavy, solid objects, like Hubble's primary mirror, could easily cause significant amounts of damage or even kill, depending on where those chunks landed.

During the previous servicing missions, Hubble has been "boosted" to higher orbits, in order to maintain it for longer. Without a crewed, reusable servicing vehicle like the shuttle, however, this is no longer feasible. Unless we develop some new technology and heavily invest in the training necessary to complete a life-saving mission, Hubble's stint as humanity's greatest optical observatory will unceremoniously come to an end. An uncrewed mission could be sent to robotically program a controlled re-entry, where the surviving components would land in the ocean, but this will only shorten its lifespan.

This image shows Hubble servicing Mission 4 astronauts practice on a Hubble model underwater at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston under the watchful eyes of NASA engineers and safety divers.

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If we keep the status quo, it's conceivable that the components on Hubble will last for decades to come. But its orbit won't. As Michael Massimino, one of the astronauts who serviced Hubble aboard the Space Shuttle for the final time in 2009, related:

Its orbit will decay. The telescope will be fine, but its orbit will be bringing it closer and closer to Earth. That’s when it’s game over.

That final mission, therefore, included a docking mechanism that was installed onto the telescope: the Soft Capture and Rendezvous System. Any properly-outfitted rocket could safely take it home.

The soft capture mechanism installed on Hubble (illustration) uses a Low Impact Docking System (LIDS) interface and associated relative navigation targets for future rendezvous, capture, and docking operations. The system’s LIDS interface is designed to be compatible with the rendezvous and docking systems to be used on the next-generation space transportation vehicle.

But time is of the essence to develop the technology that can either save it and prolong its life, or to take it safely out of orbit. If it continues on its current path, it will likely come crashing down to Earth in an uncontrolled fashion by the mid-2030s at the latest, and possibly in just over a decade, depending on a number of unpredictable factors. The only planned apparatus capable of servicing or boosting Hubble, NASA's Space Launch System, has already seen its first planned flight slip behind schedule. If things slip far enough, we may have no option but to de-orbit.

Unless NASA's Space Launch System is ready in time, and the space administration decides to invest the resources in servicing and boosting Hubble once again, a de-orbit will be the only way to prevent an uncontrolled potential disaster.

The truth is that, more than any other observatory in history, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed how we view the Universe. Although other ground-based and space-based observatories have been built and will be flying that surpass Hubble on a number of fronts, for some classes of observing, it's still the best tool humanity has ever created. But by the very nature of its orbit, not only is its lifetime finite, but its demise will come in a horrific, potentially dangerous fashion if we do nothing. Saving it for further use is a long-term project that requires planning now. Hubble is falling, and if we don't take the steps to catch it soon, it will be too late.

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The Far Side Of Our Galaxy Has Been "Seen" For The First Time Ever

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Being unable to see the wood for the trees is a fairly common idiom, though we could just as easily say we can't see the Milky Way for the stars. Thanks to recent research based on an old astronomy trick, we now have a more accurate idea of where objects are on the other side of the galaxy, filling in key details to the map of our own cosmic backyard.

As familiar as the night sky might be, sitting smack bang in the middle of our own galaxy makes it a little harder to get a complete picture of how it looks from the outside. The fact it's a flattened disc doesn't help matters much; the best we can do is find ways to measure the relative positions of stars and plot them on a 3D map.

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But how do we know how far away a star is? Those twinkling nuclear furnaces come in all manner of sizes and luminosities, so astronomers can't use brightness to determine stellar distances. To make their record-breaking measurement, astronomers from the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the US used an astronomy technique that dates back nearly 180 years.

Stellar parallax was first used in 1838 by the German astronomer Friedrich Bessel to measure the distance to a star in the constellation Cygnus. His measurement of 10.3 light years was about a light year off; not bad for a guy with a simple telescope, keen eyes, and some sharp trigonometry skills. The basics are fairly straightforward; hold up a forefinger close to your face and close one eye. Then open it, and close the other.

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Repeat this with your finger held at a distance. The apparent change in your finger's position as you look at it with each eye depends on how far away it is from your face. You'd need your eyes to be pretty far apart to detect the shifts in something as distant as a star. Fortunately as the Earth orbits the Sun, we get just that. A dozen light years away is virtually just over the galactic back fence. To get to see more of the galaxy, we need a telescope with a much sharper focus.

Hubble's wide field camera manages a bit better, but even that can only manage to determine the relative shift in a star's position if it's within 10,000 light years. Our galaxy's diameter is estimated to be ten times that size. In this latest analysis, the astronomers were able to measure the distance to a group of stars literally on the other side of the Milky Way, a mind-blowing 66,000 light years away from Earth.

This nearly doubles the previous record of just over 36,000 light years achieved in 2013. Both of these distances were measured using a piece of technology called the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). In simple terms, the VLBA consists of 10 large antennas separated out over thousands of kilometres between North America, Hawaii, and the Caribbean, making up one single, giant eye.

That allows astronomers to detect a shift in a star's position equivalent to the diameter of a baseball on the surface of the Moon. The observations were made several years ago, in 2014 and 2015, detecting light from a region in space where new stars were being born. Surrounding clouds of water and methanol molecules amplified their radiance across the incredible distance, helping them to shine through the thick fog of dust that blocks a lot of the light.

“Most of the stars and gas in our galaxy are within this newly-measured distance from the Sun. With the VLBA, we now have the capability to measure enough distances to accurately trace the galaxy's spiral arms and learn their true shapes,” says researcher Alberto Sanna from the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. “This means that, using the VLBA, we now can accurately map the whole extent of our galaxy.”

We shouldn't hold our breath for an accurate Google Milky Way any time soon – the researchers estimate we're still a decade off having a fairly complete picture. Still, a selfie the size of a galaxy should be well worth the wait.

This research was published in Science.

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Bizarre New Object in Our Solar System Spotted By Hubble

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Hubble Has Confirmed The Largest Ocean World in Our Solar System And Its Not On Earth

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“The Ganymede Ocean is believed to contain more water than Europa's,” says Olivier Witasse, a project scientist working on ESA’s future Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE). “Six times more water in Ganymede’s ocean than in Earth's ocean, and three times more than Europa.”

In March of 2016, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope revealed the best evidence yet for an underground saltwater ocean on Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon --larger than Mercury and not much smaller than Mars. Identifying liquid water is crucial in the search for habitable worlds beyond Earth and for the search for life, as we know it.

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“This discovery marks a significant milestone, highlighting what only Hubble can accomplish,” said John Grunsfeld, now retired assistant administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “In its 25 years in orbit, Hubble has made many scientific discoveries in our own solar system. A deep ocean under the icy crust of Ganymede opens up further exciting possibilities for life beyond Earth.”

Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system and the only moon with its own magnetic field. The magnetic field causes aurorae, which are ribbons of glowing, hot electrified gas, in regions circling the north and south poles of the moon. Because Ganymede is close to Jupiter, it is also embedded in Jupiter's magnetic field. When Jupiter's magnetic field changes, the aurorae on Ganymede also change, "rocking" back and forth.

Just as Saturn's moon, Dione is perennially overshadowed by Enceladus and Titan, Ganymede's fame is eclipsed by its sister ocean world, Europa, slated for flybys by NASA’s Europa Clipper mission in the 2020s.

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Ganymede's cycles of auroral activity on the surface, detected by the Hubble Space Telescope, reveal oscillations in the moon’s magnetic field best explained by the internal heat-generating tidal sloshing of a huge ocean hundreds of kilometers below the surface. JUICE will fly by the moons at distances between 1000 and 200 kilometers, orbiting Ganymede for nine months, with the latter four months at an altitude of about 500 km. While the oceans of Jupiter's moons are likely buried at significant depth below their icy crusts, radar will be able to help piece together clues as to their complex evolution.

For example, it will explore Europa's potentially active regions and be able to distinguish where the composition changes, such as if there are local, shallow reservoirs of water sandwiched between icy layers. It will be able to find 'deflected' subsurface layers, which will help to determine the tectonic history of Ganymede in particular.

The distinction between ice and non-ice materials will also be possible, perhaps enabling the detection of buried cyrovolcanic reservoirs. On Callisto, radar profiling will help to understand the evolution of large impact crater structures that are apparent on the surface, which typically display multiple rims and a central dome. Their nature provides clues to the nature of the surface and subsurface at the time of the impact.

“Seeing into the subsurface of these moons with radar will be like looking back in time, helping us to determine the geological evolution of these enigmatic worlds.” says Witasse.

On the way, reports NASA the space craft will make several flybys of another potentially ocean-bearing Jovian moon, Callisto. “We think that Callisto also harbors a subsurface ocean, but the available data is unclear,” Witasse says. “What we hope to do is to check whether there is an ocean or not—and if yes, at which depth.”

Reference: ESA and Scientific American

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Hubble Space Telescope Just Spotted a Mysterious New Object Whizzing Through the Solar System

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The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered something truly unique – a pair of orbiting asteroids that are behaving like a comet.

A group of astronomers used the NASA/ESA telescope to observe the system known as 288P in September 2016, just before it made its closest approach to our Sun. To their surprise, 288P is not a single asteroid, as previously thought, but a pair of orbiting space rocks with very unusual characteristics.

The asteroids are orbiting at a distance of about 100km, much farther than any other known binary pair. But what’s also unusual is that they are exhibiting the features of a comet, including a bright coma and a long tail.

“We detected strong indications of the sublimation of water ice due to the increased solar heating – similar to how the tail of a comet is created,” explained Jessica Agarwal of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, the team leader and main author of the research paper published in Nature.

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Hubble photographed a pair of asteroids orbiting each other that have a tail of dust, which is a comet-like feature. The odd object, called 2006 VW139/288P, is the first known binary asteroid that is also classified as a main-belt comet. Roughly 5,000 years ago, 2006 VW139/288P probably broke into two pieces due to a fast rotation.

(Credits: NASA, ESA, and J. Agarwal, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research)

This strange behavior makes 288P the first known binary asteroid that is also classified as a main-belt comet. There are other asteroids that orbit each other and those that are releasing vapor, but this is the first time astronomers have seen both characteristics at once.

Astronomers take every chance they can get to study asteroids up close because these space rocks hold vital clues as to how certain planets, like Earth, end up with water, while others get none. The composition of asteroids in the asteroid belt of our Solar System has remained virtually the same since the planets were formed, telling us a lot about the materials that went into making those planets and how they may have been formed.

But asteroids are very difficult to examine because, in cosmic terms, they’re pretty small and dim. Having one pass close by is a great opportunity for study and the fact that these two orbit each other allows the researchers to gather more information, including calculating their masses. The fact that the system is trailing water also proves that it hasn’t been in this binary situation for long.

"Surface ice cannot survive in the asteroid belt for the age of the Solar System but can be protected for billions of years by a refractory dust mantle, only a few metres thick,” said Agarwal.

288P has probably only existed as an orbiting pair for about 5000 years. It probably started as one asteroid that broke up because of how fast it was rotating and then the two large orbiting fragments were pushed further away from each other by the gases and dust they are ejecting. It may just be a coincidence that such an unusual pairing presented for study, it could be quite a unique system. But it nonetheless will be an extremely important system for future studies.

Asteroids are a ripe field for further study, with some citizen projects hoping to be able to mine their riches and agencies like NASA funding further research into them. NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission is currently travelling through space to a nearby asteroid in the hopes of taking a sample from it and returning it to Earth.

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NASA’s Hubble Captures Stunning Photo That Will Make You Feel Insignificant

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Astronomers Shocked To Find Galaxy Alignments In Earliest Cosmos

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Bright clusters of galaxies --- seen as far back as ten billion light years in cosmic time --- appear to be aligned to their local surroundings on scales of millions of light years, an international team of astronomers now reports.

In a paper appearing in the journal Nature Astronomy, lead author Michael West and colleagues note that Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of 65 galaxy clusters suggest that the brightest galaxies in these clusters have a unique formation history; one “influenced by development of the cosmic web over billions of years.” The team was just as surprised to find that these alignments date back to an epoch when our 13.8 billion year-old cosmos was only a third of its current age.

Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, HST Frontier Fields.

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A new study based on observations with the Hubble Space Telescope has shown that the most massive galaxies in the universe have been aligned with their surroundings for at least ten billion years.

As the authors note, astronomers once assumed that galaxies were randomly oriented across the cosmos, but now it’s clear that at least some have what they term preferred orientations with respect to their surroundings.

The most likely scenario to explain such orientations is that the largest galaxies in such large clusters grew by cannibalizing smaller ones. West, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., likens the largest such galaxies to spiders waiting for prey at the center of a web. “Only it’s galaxies rather than bugs that are being eaten, and the web isn't circular, it's elongated in certain directions,” he said.

West says the orientations of such galaxies apparently come about because large galaxies capture smaller ones along local strands of the cosmic web. But he says only the brightest member of each of these galaxy clusters seems to be elongated in the same direction as its host cluster. However, the brightest galaxies are almost always found at the very center of their host cluster, he says.

Galaxies in other locations, West says, have led somewhat different lives, and consequently haven't ended up aligned with their surroundings. But he was most surprised by the fact that the team observed these alignments when the universe was only one third its current age. That is, during an epoch when galaxies, galaxy clusters, and the vast cosmic web were still in their infancy.

What's next?

The aim is to look far enough back in cosmic time to observe an epoch before these clusters became aligned. That would help researchers rule out one or more theories for their origin.

West says these alignment revelations are important for cosmology, because they give us new insights into the birth and evolution of the cosmos’ most massive galaxies.

Perhaps the biggest conundrum however is why less bright galaxies show little if any such alignment.

“ Clearly, there's something special about the brightest galaxies compared to others , something that sets them apart from the usual galactic riffraff,” said West.

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This Amazing Shot of 10,000 Galaxies Is the Hubble Telescope’s Most Amazing Photo Ever

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Sinister Security

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Captures Image Of Largest And Hottest Galaxy Ever Found

Discovery of the Galaxy Cluster El Gordo

Weak Lensing and the Primitive Galaxy SPT0615-JD

The Hubble Space Telescope is Falling Towards the Earth

The Far Side Of Our Galaxy Has Been "Seen" For The First Time Ever

Bizarre New Object in Our Solar System Spotted By Hubble

Hubble Has Confirmed The Largest Ocean World in Our Solar System And Its Not On Earth

Hubble Space Telescope Just Spotted a Mysterious New Object Whizzing Through the Solar System

NASA’s Hubble Captures Stunning Photo That Will Make You Feel Insignificant

Astronomers Shocked To Find Galaxy Alignments In Earliest Cosmos

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This Amazing Shot of 10,000 Galaxies Is the Hubble Telescope’s Most Amazing Photo Ever

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