Please tune in (or join us in person, if you’re in the Austin, Texas area!) for a lecture by Hubble astrophysicist Dr. Frank Summers at the Astronomy Department at the University of Texas at Austin this Thursday at 7 p.m. CST. This talk will be live-streamed here on our YouTube Channel, but if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and say hi!

Admission is free.

The presentation of complex scientific ideas demands both precision and detail. The interpretation of even graphical representations generally requires specialized knowledge.

Public-level visuals are difficult, and risk becoming over-simplified cartoon versions. Astronomy, however, has gained favor with the public for its awe-inspiring images from the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories. That visual splendor attracts a wide audience, creating a much smoother and natural entry into scientific topics.

Dr. Summers will showcase compelling visuals and describe techniques he used in creating sequences for educational materials, press releases, planetarium shows, and IMAX films. If beauty is truth, and truth beauty, you won’t want to miss this event.

The dense star cluster called R136 is located within the Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus), a giant star-forming region in a nearby dwarf galaxy. Astronomers suspect that the multiple clumps of stars within R136 are actually a pair of interacting star clusters. Supporting evidence for this idea comes from the large number of “runaway stars” — stars moving with unusually high velocity — that have been found within the nebula. A single, large star cluster would not produce as many runaway stars as two smaller interacting star clusters. In addition, some of these runaway stars are older than the estimated age of R136.

This computer simulation shows the gravitational interaction of two young star clusters. The 3.5 million years of the encounter have been compressed into just 27 seconds. The smaller star cluster approaches from the left, has its trajectory bent strongly as it swings by the larger cluster, and then returns for a second pass. The visualization then zooms in and dissolves to a Hubble Space Telescope image of star cluster R136. After a partial zoom out, the sequence continues forward in time to show the clusters merging into a single cluster.

At the start of the simulation, the smaller cluster is not gravitationally bound to the large cluster. After the first interaction, the pair of star clusters become gravitationally entwined and destined to merge together. A noticeable byproduct of the encounter is that interactions between stars efficiently eject massive stars from the smaller cluster. Some of these ejected stars would be considered runaways. Further, the stars in the smaller cluster are a million years older than those in the larger cluster, which would help explain the observed age discrepancies. Finally, note that while all the stars shown are initially hot and blue, some reach the end of their lives during the simulation and evolve into cooler red giant stars.

For more information or to download this video, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/video_details/4-star-clusters-in-collision

For more videos, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) peers deeper into the universe than any previous visible-light image. Multiple observations of the same small patch of sky were combined for an equivalent exposure time of more than 11 days. Revealed within the image are thousands of galaxies located many billions of light-years away. Many of these galaxies are too small and too faint to be otherwise seen. Most importantly, because the light from distant galaxies requires billions of years to cross the intervening space, astronomers get to see them as they were billions of years ago. Much of the history of galaxy development can be found within the HUDF image.

This scientific visualization flies through a 3D model of the HUDF galaxies. Each of the more than 5,000 galaxies in the model was cut out of the HUDF image and placed at its appropriate distance (as calculated from redshift measurements). The virtual camera flies through this long, thin galaxy dataset, showing how galaxy sizes, shapes, and colors change as one looks both out in space and back in time. Note that, in order to traverse the cosmos in a reasonable amount of time, the distance scale in the model was compressed by a factor of a few hundred.

For more information or to download this video, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/video_details/3-across-the-universe-hubble-ultra-deep-field

For more videos, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/

The active galaxy Hercules A was given that name because it is the brightest radio source in the constellation of Hercules. Astronomers found that the double-peaked radio emission corresponded to a giant elliptical galaxy cataloged as 3C 348. Unusually, this behemoth galaxy is not found within a large cluster of hundreds of galaxies, but rather within a comparatively small group of dozens of galaxies. The ‘active’ part of the galaxy is the supermassive black hole in its core, which spews out strong jets of energetic particles that produce enormous lobes of radio emission. Some astronomers suspect that Hercules A may be the result of two galaxies merging together.

This video envisions a three-dimensional look at the combined visible light (Hubble Space Telescope) and radio emission (Very Large Array) from Hercules A. The size of these radio lobes dwarfs the large galaxy and extends throughout the volume of the galaxy group. This visualization is intended only to be a scientifically reasonable illustration of the three-dimensional structures. In particular, the galaxy distances within the group are based on a statistical model, and not measured values.

For more information or to download this video, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/video_details/9-active-galaxy-hercules-a-visible-radio

For more videos, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/

Saturn’s wide, but very thin, rings are tilted with respect to its plane of orbit around the Sun. Once every 15 years, the rings are edge-on (perpendicular) to the Sun. During those times, some of Saturn’s moons can cast shadows across the rings.

This time-lapse movie shows the icy moons Enceladus, Mimas, Dione, and Tethys orbiting Saturn. Enceladus, seemingly chased by Mimas, is first to speed past the rings and in front of the planet. Both moons cast small shadows on the planet, but only Enceladus casts a shadow on the rings. The orbit of Mimas is inclined so that its shadow misses the rings. Dione is next, and its long shadow also tracks across the ring system. As the three moons move across Saturn’s disk, the viewer catches a fleeting view of Tethys as it moves behind the planet on the right.

The 30-second movie is created from Hubble images taken over a 9½-hour span. The images were taken Nov. 17, 1995, with Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. The movie has a standard aspect ratio, but is presented within a widescreen frame – the black bars along the sides are normal.

For more information or to download this video, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/video_details/8-moon-shadows-on-saturn

For more videos, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/

The giant planet Jupiter has a diameter of more than 10 times Earth’s diameter. Its striped and dynamic atmosphere, dotted with massive, powerful storms, has been a continuing Hubble target over the years.

A collection of images from 2007 have been combined to get full, even coverage of Jupiter. The resulting mosaic has been mapped onto a sphere, and one full rotation is presented in the visualization.

For more information or to download this video, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/video_details/6-jupiter-globe-rotation

For more videos, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/