NASA Telescope Makes Terrifying Discovery in Deep Space
Intro NASA's Hubble Telescope has captured some
of the most beautiful photos of space which have played a major role in helping us explore
more of the cosmos.
However, every once in a while, the telescope is known to make terrifying discoveries that
shake scientists to the core.
Whether it be daunting black holes, supernovas, or potential Earth-like planets, there's always
something new for astronomers to come across.
The Hubble Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble Space
Telescope has provided a dazzling array of images that have awed and inspired the public.
But Hubble's about far more than just pretty pictures.
The mission has gathered dozens of terabytes of data over the decades, providing key insights
into the universe, from objects as close as the moon to the most remote galaxies, with
observations of supernovas and nebulas in between.
Astronomer Lyman Spitzer was the first to propose launching a space telescope, which
could overcome the limitations of ground-based observatories in 1946.
It took a couple more decades before the idea garnered enough support for the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences to organize a committee of scientists to evaluate the potential of
a "Large Space Telescope."
Development on the project began in 1977, with NASA planning to launch the telescope
in 1983, but various production delays pushed the launch date back to 1986.
In the meantime, the Large Space Telescope was renamed Hubble in honor of Edwin Hubble,
an American astronomer who, among other things, determined that the universe extended beyond
the borders of the Milky Way.
Hubble finally launched aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990, and a day later
was deployed into low Earth orbit, about 340 miles.
Getting Hubble developed and launched cost $1.5 billion, but there would be ongoing costs
as well — both expected and unexpected.
Initial instruments on Hubble included the Wide Field Planetary Camera, the Goddard High-Resolution
Spectrograph, the Faint Object Camera, the Faint Object Spectrograph, and the High-Speed
Photometer.
More were added over the years in subsequent missions which allowed astronauts to upgrade
and repair the telescope.
The Hubble Space Telescope has lasted an astounding 31 years, and in that time, it has revolutionized
our understanding of the universe.
Discoveries in our Solar System The telescope has been the source of some
truly exciting discoveries, even in our cosmic neighborhood.
Hubble discovered two new moons of Pluto, dubbed Nix and Hydra, and recently mapped
seasonal changes to its surface.
Also, by helping to find out the mass of Eris, which is 27 percent more massive than Pluto,
the realization that similar bodies might lurk in the Kuiper Belt and beyond helped
demote Pluto and similar objects to dwarf planet status.
Future observations of such distant bodies could help scientists better understand how
the solar system evolved.
Another rare event captured by the telescope was the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy
9 with Jupiter in 1994.
The giant planet's gravitational pull ripped the comet apart into fragments, resulting
in 21 visible impacts.
The largest collision created a fireball that rose about 1,800 miles above the Jovian cloud
tops as well as a giant dark spot more than 7,460 miles across — about the size of the
Earth — and was estimated to have exploded with the force of 6,000 gigatons of TNT.
Not only did Hubble's observations heighten public interest in the effects of cosmic impacts,
but they also shed light on Jupiter's atmosphere.
During June and July 2012, U.S. astronomers using Hubble discovered Styx, a tiny fifth
moon orbiting Pluto.
In March 2015, researchers announced that measurements of aurorae around Ganymede, one
of Jupiter's moons, revealed that it has a subsurface ocean.
Using Hubble to study the motion of its aurorae, the researchers determined that a large saltwater
ocean was helping to suppress the interaction between Jupiter's magnetic field and that
of Ganymede.
The ocean is estimated to be 60 miles deep, trapped beneath a 90-mile ice crust.
From June to August 2015, Hubble was used in the search for a Kuiper belt object target
for the New Horizons Kuiper Belt Extended Mission when similar searches with ground
telescopes failed to find a suitable target.
This resulted in the discovery of at least five new objects, including the eventual mission
target known as 486958 Arrokoth, that New Horizons performed a close fly-by of on January
1, 2019.
In August 2020, taking advantage of a total lunar eclipse, astronomers using NASA's Hubble
Space Telescope have detected Earth's brand of sunscreen – ozone – in our atmosphere.
This method simulates how astronomers and astrobiology researchers will search for evidence
of life beyond Earth by observing potential "biosignatures" on exoplanets.
Discoveries In Deep Space While the telescope has made some amazing
discoveries in the solar system, its true calling has been helping us understand the
mysteries of deep space.
Dark matter, which is invisible but reveals its existence via gravity, makes up roughly
23 percent of the universe.
By analyzing the distortions caused by dark matter's gravity on light from distant galaxies,
Hubble helped construct the largest scale 3-D maps scientists have of where dark matter
is distributed in the universe.
These have helped show that the lumpiness of dark matter has increased over time, showing
it exhibits ordinary gravity, as opposed to something else.
Better understanding how dark matter behaves could help scientists figure out what it is.
Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions known in the universe, typically cutting loose
more energy in seconds than our sun will release in its entire 10-billion-year lifetime.
The origin of these bursts was a mystery for decades.
Hubble helped discover these bursts typically occur in galaxies that were actively forming
stars and were low in metallicity — that is, low in elements heavier than helium.
This suggested gamma-ray bursts emerged as massive stars collapse to form black holes
— active star-forming galaxies are often rich in massive stars that collapse quickly,
and low-metallicity stars are more likely to retain their mass and form black holes.
Additionally, by determining the rate at which the universe is expanding, Hubble may have
helped solve the mystery of how old the universe is, but it unexpectedly turned up an even
more profound one — the fact that the rate of the universe's expansion is not slowing
down or even constant, but is inexplicably accelerating.
The culprit behind this, dubbed dark energy, is now thought to make up 74 percent of the
combined mass energy in the entire universe, and it remains an utter enigma.
Solving this mystery could revolutionize physics as we know it.
Before Hubble, it was highly uncertain as to when the universe was born, which could
lead to unbearable paradoxes, such as the laughable possibility that stars astronomers
detected were older than our universe.
By greatly narrowing down the rate at which the universe is expanding, Hubble helped refine
estimates of the universe's age down to roughly 13.75 billion years, a result that not only
plays a role in modeling how our universe has evolved, but also in our understanding
of other seemingly unrelated cosmic parameters, such as the mass of neutrinos.
Terrifying Discovery One of the latest discoveries made by the
telescope may be the most terrifying yet.
The new snapshot shows a dying star — specifically, a red giant star.
Known as CW Leonis, the star is a truly incredible sight.
It has a bright flash of light at its center and eerie rings surrounding it.
The spiral shape also resembles several things, including a portal to another dimension, a
cosmic witch cauldron, or even a spider web from a nightmarish space spider.
Located 400 light-years from Earth, CW Leonis is the closest carbon star to our planet.
The relatively short distance makes it easy for astronomers to study the intricate details
of CW Leonis, especially compared to other stars much further away.
One such detail is the dusty clouds around the outside of CW Leonis.
These are large amounts of carbon being ejected out from the star.
CW Leonis' nuclear fusion creates carbon, the carbon grows in the star's interior, and
it's eventually shot out into space — creating the cloudy look seen in the picture.
There are also the light beams emitting from CW Leonis.
NASA says their brightness has changed a lot over the last 15 years, which is "an incredibly
short period in astronomical terms."
The reason for this change in brightness isn't 100 percent known, but astronomers have an
idea.
"Astronomers speculate that gaps in the dust shrouding CW Leonis may allow beams of starlight
to pierce through and illuminate dust, like searchlight beacons through a cloudy sky."
And, of course, there's CW Leonis' striking color.
The reason for its orange/red hue is the 'low' 2,300°F surface temperature.
That might sound incredibly hot compared to the temperature on Earth, but it's a far cry
from the Sun's 27,000,000°F temps.
CW Leonis also has some beams that shine at invisible wavelengths, so ones that appear
in green have been edited by NASA for "better analysis."
Adding all of these things together makes CW Leonis one of the most terrifying cosmic
objects observed so far.
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