The Horsehead Nebula is a dark cloud of dense gas and dust located just below the belt of Orion on the sky. A visible light view shows a strong silhouette resembling the horse’s head used for a knight in chess. Infrared light, however, reveals a more complex scene, as shown in Hubble’s 2013 image. The warm parts of the clouds glow in infrared light, plus longer infrared wavelengths can penetrate deeper into the clouds. A dark and relatively featureless scene is revealed as a glowing gaseous landscape.

This video presents a scientific visualization of the Horsehead Nebula as seen in infrared light. To fill out the widescreen frame, the central Hubble image has been augmented by ground-based observations from the European Southern Observatory’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA). The three-dimensional interpretation has been sculpted to create a wispy and mountainous environment, with stars distributed in an approximate and statistical manner. The computer graphics model is intended to be scientifically reasonable, but not fully accurate. This imaginative traverse provides an inspiring spaceflight experience that brings the celestial scene to life.

For more information or to download this video, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/video_details/11-a-horse-of-a-different-color

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In 2004, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) provided a ground-breaking view of distant galaxies. In 2009, those data were augmented with new infrared observations to create the HUDF-IR. In 2012, the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (HXDF) combined those images along with a complete census of archival datasets to see yet farther into the universe. The HXDF contains roughly 5500 galaxies stretching over 13 billion light-years of space, and represents astronomy’s deepest view into the cosmos.

This scientific visualization depicts a flight through the HXDF galaxies. Using measured and estimated distances for approximately three thousand galaxies, astronomers and visualizers constructed a three-dimensional model of the galaxy distribution. The camera traverses through the thirteen-billion-light-year dataset and ends in blackness, not because more distant galaxies do not exist, but because such galaxies have not yet been observed. For cinematic reasons, the exceedingly vast distances in the 3D model have been significantly compressed.

For more information or to download this video, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/video_details/22-cosmic-exploration-hubble-extreme-deep-field

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Join us tonight for a Hubble Hangout live from South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, where we’ve been talking with the crowds and taking in some of the NASA events and exhibits. Our topics tonight will include exoplanets and the search for life. Natalie Batalha from the Kepler mission will demonstrate a new app for visualizing Kepler data and we’ll discuss the JWST Panel “First Signs: Finding Life on Other Planets.”

Bring your questions and comments, and we’ll try to answer them. Hope to see you there!

Please join us as members of the team staffing the JWST and Hubble booth at SXSW discuss their impressions of the event and take any questions you may have about JWST and Hubble at SXSW or the missions themselves.

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 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

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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

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This video is the stereo 3D version of “Flyby of JWST at L2 Point”.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the next of NASA’s Great Observatories; following in the line of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. JWST combines qualities of two of its predecessors, observing in infrared light, like Spitzer, with fine resolution, like Hubble.

The telescope has a 6.5 meter mirror composed of 18 hexagonal segments in a honeycomb pattern. Protecting the sensitive research instruments is a large sunsheild about the size of a tennis court. Further protection comes from the observatory’s remote location in a place called the second LaGrange point (L2). Orbiting the Sun at L2, JWST will be about a million miles from Earth (roughly four times more distant than the Moon) and will always have Earth and the Sun in the same direction.

This animation, designed as an homage to a shot from “2001: A Space Odyssey”, flies by and circles around a model of JWST at L2. The opening of the sequence illustrates the L2 location, showing the Moon in the foreground, Earth in the mid-ground, and the Sun in the background.

For more information or to download this video, visit: http://hubblesite.org/videos/video_details/14-flyby-of-jwst-at-l2-point-in-3d

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