Gorgeous Hubble telescope image was 20 years in the making: Space photo of the day
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
This Hubble Space Telescope image shows a spiral galaxy and a bright star, both in the constellation Virgo. The two celestial bodies appear to be close to one another but in actuality, they are far apart.
This stunning image by the Hubble Space Telescope contains an optical illusion. The spiral galaxy, referred to by astronomers as NGC 4900, appears to be sharing space with a brilliant star.The star, which stands out due to its prominent diffraction spikes, is in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and is 7,109 light-years from Earth. The galaxy, on the other hand, is about 45 million light years away.
The star and galaxy are not the only details separated in this image. It is also the product of two different Hubble Space Telescope instruments from two different eras of its use 20 years apart, NASA wrote in a statement accompanying the image.
The data was recorded by both the Advanced Camera for Surveys, which was installed in 2002 and is still in operation, and the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, which was added in 1993 and removed in 2009.
The data was collected for two different observing programs. Both were focused on better understanding the demise of massive stars, but in one, the study was aimed at the sites of past supernovas (like NGC 4900) to estimate the masses of the stars that exploded and learn more about how the powerful events interact with their surroundings.
The other program provided the foundation for studying future supernovae by collecting images of more than 150 nearby galaxies. When supernova in one of these galaxies is detected, researchers can refer to the baseline images. Identifying details in pre-explosion images can help inform the how, when and why supernovas occur.
You can read more about supernovas and the affect they had on Earth, possibly triggering two mass extinctions in our past. Or see a Hubble Space Telescope image of a rare supernova explosion.
You can also see another stunning image taken by Hubble, this one of a spiral starbust galaxy.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
UPI
11 minutes ago
- UPI
Axiom private mission to ISS delayed because of weather
1 of 2 | Peggy Whitson, former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, will command the Axiom commercial mission. The crew also includes pilot Shubhanshu Shukla (left) with the Indian Space Research Organization, and mission specialists with the European Space Agency, Tibor Kapu of Hungary (third from left) andSławosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland (right). Photo courtesy Axiom. June 9 (UPI) -- SpaceX, NASA and Axiom Space postponed Tuesday's scheduled launch of the fourth private astronaut mission to the International Space Station because of unfavorable weather conditions in the Dragon spacecraft's flight path. The Axiom Mission 4 launch had been scheduled for 8:22 a.m. Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A, NASA said in a news release Monday. They now are targeting 8 a.m. EDT on Wednesday for the next launch opportunity. The backup opportunity is 7:37 a.m. Thursday. Now targeting no earlier than Wednesday, June 11 for Falcon 9 to launch @Axiom_Space's Ax-4 mission to the @Space_Station due to high winds in the ascent corridor → SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 9, 2025 Axiom Space and SpaceX are planning coverage and NASA separately in the morning. Falcon 9's first stage would land on Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This is the first flight for the Dragon spacecraft and second for the first-stage booster, which previously launched a Starlink mission The targeted docking time is one day later. There are nine people currently on the ISS. Peggy Whitson, 65, a former NASA astronaut and director of human spaceflight at Axiom Space, will command the commercial mission. The crew also includes pilot Shubhanshu Shukla with the Indian Space Research Organization, and mission specialists with the European Space Agency, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary. This would be the first time ISRO will send an astronaut to the space station as well as ESA astronauts from Hungary and Poland. The crew members plan to conduct 60 scientific experiments and demonstrations "focused on human research, Earth observation, and life, biological, and material sciences," according to SpaceX. Axiom Space, which is based in Houston and founded in 2016, is building the first commercial space station with deployment planned in the late 2020s. The Axiom 3 mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A on Jan. 18, 2024. It was the first spaceflight entirely with European citizens.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
What the Trump-Musk Feud Means for SpaceX and NASA
Musk and Trump before the feud, at the test launch of a Starship rocket in Nov. 2024 Credit - Getty Images What happens in Washington decidedly does not stay in Washington, with practically every action taken by the richest and most powerful country in the world having a near-immediate global reaction—on tariffs, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, global health, and more. Sometimes those reactions aren't even confined to the planet—as the recent social-media smackdown between President Donald Trump and former adviser Elon Musk illustrated. On June 5, as the feud between the two erstwhile besties escalated, Trump posted on his Truth Social Platform, 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!' Just over 90 minutes later, in a post on X, Musk clapped back: 'In light of the President's statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.' Not long after that post went wide, Musk quietly deleted it. Later that evening, an X user posted to Trump and Musk, 'This is a shame this back and forth. You are both better than this. Cool off and take a step back for a couple days.' Minutes later, Musk responded, 'Good advice. OK, we won't decommission Dragon.' Read more: The Musk-Trump Implosion Can Be Seen From Space That defused the immediate emergency, but the threat and counterthreat raised questions about just how dependent America's space efforts are on the whims of two sometimes mercurial billionaires. Could a mere word from Musk ground the nation? Could a stroke of a Trump Sharpie similarly hobble SpaceX? The short answer in both cases is maybe, but not likely. There's no overstating just how central SpaceX has become in the space sector in the 23 years since it was founded as the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation. Since the inaugural flight of the company's Falcon 9 in 2010, the rocket has become the world's workhorse vehicle for rides to orbit, with 485 completed missions, including 440 acrobatic landings of its reusable first stage. The rocket and its Dragon spacecraft provide regular service to the International Space Station (ISS), carrying crews up and down, and ferrying cargo and supplies aboard uncrewed Dragons. In 2024, the company's larger Falcon Heavy launched NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft to Jupiter's moon Europa. It is set to launch the ambitious Nancy Grace Roman Telescope in May 2027. The working relationship between SpaceX and the government is by no means limited to NASA. In April, as Ars Technica reports, the U.S. Space Force awarded the company a $5.9 billion contract, making SpaceX the leading provider of launch services for Pentagon satellites. The military is also a major customer of SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation, with 50 military commands now using the orbiting Internet service, according to Defense News. 'We have $22 billion in government contracts,' said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and COO, in a live streamed public panel last year. 'We earned that. We bid it, we were the lowest price, best bidder, we won and we execute.' If anything, the company is going to have the opportunity to execute still more, reinforcing the ties between SpaceX and the government. In 2021, NASA selected SpaceX's still-in-development Starship rocket to serve as the lander that is planned to carry American astronauts down from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon sometime before the end of the decade. In 2024, the space agency tapped SpaceX to build the vehicle that will nudge the ISS out of orbit when the program ends in 2030. And in May, Trump's so-called skinny budget called for NASA to cancel its over-budget and behind-schedule Space Launch System, the 21st century answer to the 1960s' Saturn V moon rocket, leaving Starship as the likeliest successor. Meantime, while Boeing's Starliner spacecraft was supposed to be joining Dragon in providing rides to the ISS—taking a share of the launch business revenue from SpaceX—Starliner famously failed in its inaugural flight last year. This left astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams stranded aboard the station for 8 months, on a mission that was supposed to last merely eight days. Similarly, Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Musk's fellow mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos, was expected to provide some launch-service competition for SpaceX, but the company has managed just one, only partially successful orbital launch of its New Glenn rocket, in January 2025, and has limited most of its activity to flying popgun suborbital missions for wealthy space tourists. 'It's not a planned monopoly,' said Shotwell in the live stream. 'If our competitors could get it together…' All of this leaves SpaceX and the government mutually interdependent, with Washington counting on the company to provide services no one else currently can, and the company happy for the paying work. That's not to say neither one could foul the joint nest. Trump's nomination of private astronaut and Musk friend Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator was widely seen as a sign of Musk's influence on the president—and Trump's decision on May 31 to pull the nomination was similarly seen as the first sign of the rift between Musk and Trump. But the president has made no other moves against Musk-world, and Musk's decision to delete his provocative post on X may have cooled tempers on both sides. SpaceX investors and other customers may serve as a brake on Musk's worst tendencies, and lawmakers from space-heavy states including California, Texas, and Florida may similarly restrain Trump. None of this says that neither man is beyond acting against his own—and his government's or his company's—best interests. The scorpion in the venerable fable famously stung the frog that was its only ride across the river—explaining before they both sank and drowned that 'it's in my nature.' Trump's and Musk's natures have always been impulsive. The space and defense sectors can only hope the two men show some restraint now. Write to Jeffrey Kluger at
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump's term a ‘rough time for science in America': Ex-NASA astronaut
(NewsNation) — The United States has grown 'completely reliant' on SpaceX, said Col. Terry Virts, a former NASA astronaut and International Space Station commander. 'It's not only NASA, also the Defense Department and the intelligence community are very dependent on SpaceX,' Virts told NewsNation. President Donald Trump has threatened to cut SpaceX contracts amid a public feud with onetime adviser Elon Musk, who briefly countered with a threat to decommission his Dragon space capsule. Pulled NASA nomination blindsides space community: 'Major blunder' Musk's threat has since been walked back, but Virts said it indicates a greater problem: national needs left to Musk's whims. 'I think it's very concerning, especially when the CEO is so unstable and has been so, you know, unpredictable and some might say, dangerous in recent years,' Virts said. Trump's proposed NASA budget would cut $6 billion — the largest single-year cut in the agency's history, according to the nonprofit Planetary Society. Under the budget, human space programs would get a boost, with more than $7 billion allocated for lunar missions and $1 billion allocated for new investments in efforts to get people to Mars. The budget includes significant cuts to staffing, maintenance, environmental compliance, and the space and Earth science programs. 'It has been a chaotic and stressful time. Unfortunately, it affects the nation's space exploration and science community, not only at NASA, but also in the medical research and other fields,' Virts said. Milky Way has 50-50 chance of colliding with neighbor galaxy Musk's company is set to launch Falcon 9 for Axiom Space's Axiom Mission 4 on Tuesday, seemingly signaling a secure partnership between SpaceX and NASA. But Virts warned of overarching damage to the American science community that has been building since Inauguration Day. 'You can't just turn on a space program, and in a matter of months. You can certainly turn it off, and that's what's happened with this administration's chaos,' Virts said. 'But getting it back is going to be a problem.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
