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Tech NewsThis Photo of Earth From the Hubble Telescope is Totally Fake
Have you seen this photo of Earth from the perspective of the Hubble telescope? Well, it’s 100 percent fake. It’s a stunning image, but it’s actually computer generated. And there’s still some confusion over who first created it. Snopes figures it’s from 2013 and done by an artist named Mike Kiev. But I suspect it’s … Continued
By Matt Novak -
io9
There May Be Nowhere Near the Number of Galaxies We Thought There Were
It looks like we might have overestimated how many neighbors we have. New predictions show that the universe might be an emptier place than we imagined. Since the Hubble launched, we’ve been seeing stunning image of the crowded universe. Most of the images come accompanied by assurances that what we see in the images is … Continued
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ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Happy 25th Birthday Hubble! Amazing Pics of the Telescope’s Construction
If it weren’t for the Hubble telescope, our selection of dope images for lock screens and desktop backgrounds would be far scantier. Thankfully, NASA’s omnipresent orbiter has been snapping celestial photos for a good quarter century—but its construction actually began way earlier, back in the late 70s, continuing throughout the next decade. These images show … Continued
By Bryan Lufkin -
io9
Learn The Amazing Story Behind Those Glowing Green Space Clouds
The Hubble Telescope captured images of these galaxies surrounded by glowing green clouds. They’re remnants of major astronomical events, but the amazing thing is what’s lighting them up. The clouds hovering around the far edges of those galaxies are made of oxygen gas. They’re the deceptively peaceful-looking wisps left over from massive galactic collisions – … Continued
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Tech NewsSploidAll those iconic space pictures are really black and white
Most of the gorgeous images of distant galaxies we all keep in our minds were captured by the lens of The Hubble Space Telescope. But those lens can only take black and white images. The color is added afterwards according to “the wavelengths of light that different elements emit in space.” This is how they … Continued
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io9
Four galaxies are smashed together in a space the size of the Milky Way
This area of the universe is known as Seyfert’s Sextet, although there are really only four galaxies engaged in this particular cosmic turf war. First spotted by astronomer Carl Keenan Seyfert, these tightly packed galaxies represent the most compact group ever discovered, as the space they occupy would barely be enough to fit in our … Continued
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io9
Hubble-print dresses, skirts, and scarves let you wear your space porn everywhere
Have you ever wanted to look into your wardrobe and gasp, “It’s full of stars”? Shadowplaynyc blends fashion with astronomical fascination, using real images from the Hubble Telescope as the prints for their clothing and accessories. Now you can show off your favorite nebula by pulling on a pair of tights. Parsons graduates Ali Bennaim … Continued
By Lauren Davis -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Explore the Universe From Your Couch With This Free, Stellar iBook
Happy holidays from space; there’s a new, free, astronomic e-book in the iTunes store and all you need to check it out is an iDevice and some time. Hubble Space Telescope: Discoveries boasts a collection of picture, video, and animation that lets you stare out into the beautiful void like never before. From the iTunes … Continued
By Eric Limer -
io9
Auroras spotted on Uranus for the first time
Outside of Earth, we’ve seen auroras on Jupiter and Saturn, but never on Uranus. Now, for the first time, the Hubble Space Telescope has photographed two auroral storms, each as large as the Earth. NASA’s Voyager 2 probe detected signals of auroral activity when it passed by Uranus in 1986, but astronomers have never been … Continued
By Lauren Davis -
io9
Gaze upon the spokes of the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy
Messier 83 is one of the closest spiral galaxies in the night sky, located just 12 million light-years from Earth. Its unique properties have earned it two of the more evocative galactic nicknames: the Southern Pinwheel and the Thousand-Ruby Galaxy. The first nickname isn’t too difficult to explain – as you might imagine, it’s located … Continued
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io9
Future Moon colonies could be powered by titanium
Scientists examining Hubble Telescope images of the Moon recently noticed what looked like titanium deposits all around the 1972 Apollo 17 landing site. When they inspected samples of moon rock from the site that were brought back to Earth by the Apollo team, scientists discovered that they were, in fact, chock full of titanium — … Continued
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io9Watch cosmic plasma jet slowly expand in 14-year time-lapse video
Most cosmic phenomena are so far away that we can’t see their movement or evolution over the course of a human lifetime. Every once in awhile, when conditions are just right, we get lucky. This is one of those times. This time-lapse video shows the evolution of a supersonic jet in the nebula-like structure HH … Continued
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io9
This is the most important star in the universe
This star may not look like much, but in 1923 it changed our understanding of the universe forever. It showed us that the Milky Way wasn’t a lonely island universe, but instead just one of billions and billions of galaxies. It seems weird to think that less than a hundred years ago we still had … Continued
