The Hubble Space Telescope
Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010
Getting to know The Hubble
•Named for Edwin
Hubble (astronomer)
•Launched in 1990
•Changed our view and
understanding of the
Universe.
Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010
Hubble Facts
Hubble orbits 400 mi above the Earth
Orbits the Earth every 97 minute
Weighs 12 tons
Size of a school bus
Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010
How Does Hubble Create the
Images?
Images come from
Hubble in black and
white.
Colors are assigned
based on chemical
elements present
Blue = Oxygen
Red = Sulfur
Green = Hydrogen
Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010
One image takes almost a year to create.
An image is made up of 48 separate images.
Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010
The Hubble Space Telescope has helped us
understand how stars are born, age, and
ultimately die!
Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010
Eagle Nebula
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Carrie Murray
500 light years away
3 gigantic pillars of
gas and dust
Towers 4 light years
tall
Shows the early
stages of a star
Known as the pillars
of creation
NASA Top Stars, 2010
Fun Fact
Our Solar System could fit inside any one of the
forming stars!
Wow!!!
Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010
Orion Nebula
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1,000 light years
away
Next phase in star
development
Tiny dark spots are
flattened disks of
gases and dust from
recently hatched
“eggs”
Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010
Orion Nebula
The bright orange spot in the center gathers dust
and debris from the disk eventually nuclear
fusion occurs and a STAR is BORN
Heat and radiation create a stellar wind
sweeping away lose matter, but some debris
remains eventually clumping together to become
PLANETS
Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010
Helix Nebula (Death of a star)
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Carrie Murray
Layers of the star
expand leaving
behind a hot white
ball of oxygen and
carbon becoming a
white dwarf
NASA Top Stars, 2010
Supernova
Bigger Star
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Shorter the life
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More violent death
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Known as supernova
Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010
Every star is balanced by the inward pull of gravity
and the outward pressure of heat by nuclear
fusion.
Once a star runs out of fuel the pressure needed
for balance is gone.
Gravity causes the star to cave in and BOOM an
explosion destroying the star and everything
around it.
Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010
Crab Nebula (The Aftermath)
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Carrie Murray
Expanding wreckage
of a supernova that
happened in 1054
A.D.
Explosion recorded
by Chinese
astronomers
Still expanding 3
million miles per hour
NASA Top Stars, 2010
Black Hole
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Created by stars 4x
larger than our star
Collapsed into a
single point smaller
than the head of pin
A hunk of matter that
is so small and
gravitational pull is so
strong light can't
Carrie Murray NASA Top Stars, 2010
escape
Astronomers noticed that stars closer to the
center of a galaxy zoom at very high speeds.
Most stars move around at slow speeds.
Stars being thrown around by something that is
massive, but compact...
A BLACK HOLE
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Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010
Power Point Credits
Images from:
www.hubblesite.org
Information from:
Naked Science
“Hubble's Amazing
Universe”
viewed on National
Geographic Channel
Carrie Murray
NASA Top Stars, 2010