Hubble Telescope watches star blast out jet of hot gas 32 light-years long

The protostar is launching the longest outburst ever seen at 32 light-years long.

Hubble Snaps Stellar Baby Pictures
Hubble Snaps Stellar Baby Pictures

Newly developing stars shrouded in thick dust get their first baby pictures in these images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble took these infant star snapshots in an effort to learn how massive stars form. Protostars are shrouded in thick dust that blocks light, but Hubble can detect the near-infrared emission that shines through holes […]

Hubble Observes Ghostly Cloud Alive with Star Formation
Hubble Observes Ghostly Cloud Alive with Star Formation

While this eerie NASA Hubble Space Telescope image may look ghostly, it’s actually full of new life. Lupus 3 is a star-forming cloud about 500 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius.  White wisps of gas swirl throughout the region, and in the lower-left corner resides a dark dust cloud. Bright T Tauri stars shine at […]

Hubble Spies Stellar Blast Setting Clouds Ablaze
Hubble Spies Stellar Blast Setting Clouds Ablaze

This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures a jet of gas from a forming star shooting across the dark expanse. The bright pink and green patches running diagonally through the image are HH 80/81, a pair of Herbig-Haro (HH) objects previously observed by Hubble in 1995. The patch to the upper left is part of HH […]

Hubble’s Album of Planet-Forming Disks
Hubble’s Album of Planet-Forming Disks

This collection of new images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope showcases protoplanetary disks, the swirling masses of gas and dust that surround forming stars, in both visible and infrared wavelengths. Through observations of young stellar objects like these, Hubble helps scientists better understand how stars form. These visible-light images depict dark, planet-forming dust disks […]

Hubble Observes Stars Flaring to Life in Orion
Hubble Observes Stars Flaring to Life in Orion

Just-forming stars, called protostars, dazzle a cloudy landscape in the Orion Molecular Cloud complex (OMC). These three new images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope were taken as part of an effort to learn more about the envelopes of gas and dust surrounding the protostars, as well as the outflow cavities where stellar winds and jets […]

We may be witnessing the messy death of a star in real time

For over two centuries, we have watched the red giant R Leonis dim and brighten with regularity, but this ‘heartbeat’ is beginning to speed up near the end of the star’s life.

Mystery shockwave around dead star stuns astronomers: ‘We found something never seen before and entirely unexpected.’

“The surprise that a supposedly quiet, discless system could drive such a spectacular nebula was one of those rare ‘wow’ moments.”

Hubble Spies Stellar Blast Setting Clouds Ablaze
Hubble Spies Stellar Blast Setting Clouds Ablaze

This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures a jet of gas from a forming star shooting across the dark expanse. The bright pink and green patches running diagonally through the image are HH 80/81, a pair of Herbig-Haro (HH) objects previously observed by Hubble in 1995. The patch to the upper left is part […]