May the force be with you! Hubble Telescope takes a photo of a blue gas jet in the constellation Orion that looks like a LIGHTSABER
- The Hubble Space Telescope made an image of a Herbig-Haro object that looks like a lightsaber
- HH111 is a “relatively rare celestial phenomenon” and is found in the constellation Orion
- Herbig – Haro objects occur when stars form again and emit rays of ionized gas in rapid motion.
- The photo was taken by Hubble’s wide field camera 3, which can be seen with visible and infrared light.
The force is strong with this.
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of a Herbig – Haro object in the constellation Orion that looks surprisingly similar to that of a Star Wars lightsaber.
Known as HH111, this “relatively rare celestial phenomenon” was captured by Hubble’s wide-field camera 3 (WFC3), according to a statement from the European Space Agency.
“These spectacular objects are formed in very specific circumstances,” ESA said.
The Hubble Space Telescope made an image of a Herbig – Haro object that looks like a lightsaber, known as HH111
This object is a “relatively rare celestial phenomenon” and is found in the constellation of Orion (pictured).
Hubble’s WFC3 takes images with visible, infrared light, allowing astronomers to see objects through gas and dust in space more clearly.
ESA added that when stars form, they are often very active and emit “fast-moving ionized gas rays.”
This gas becomes so hot that “its molecules and atoms have lost electrons, which makes the gas very charged,” ESA explained.
The ionized gas eventually collides with the clouds of gas and dust surrounding the newly formed stars at hundreds of miles per second.
But because they release so much light at optical wavelengths, they are hard to see.
“Therefore, the ability of WFC3 to observe at infrared wavelengths, where observations are not as affected by gas and dust, is crucial to successfully observing Herbo-Haro objects,” ESA added.
According to NASA, Herbig-Haro objects are “bright spots of nebulae associated with newborn stars.”
They generally take the form of thin rays of partially ionized gas in deep space that “are ejected by stars that collide with nearby clouds of gas and dust,” the US space agency added.
In 2015, Hubble took a picture of another Herbig-Haro object, HH24, which also looks like a lightsaber.
NASA went so far as to mention Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens and the fact that it looks like a “double-edged cosmic lightsaber” in its description.
HH24 is located in the molecular cloud complex of Orion B, about 1,350 light-years from Earth.
The photo was taken by Hubble’s wide field camera 3, which can be seen with visible and infrared light.
Last month, Hubble’s WFC3 was commissioned to release an image of a stellar nursery, AFGL 5180, 5,000 light-years from Earth.
Hubble, which has been in operation for more than 30 years, will be replaced by the James Webb Telescope, which will be launched later this year, for $ 10 billion.
Scientists study the atmosphere of distant exoplanets using huge space satellites like Hubble
Distant stars and their orbiting planets often have different conditions from everything we see in our atmosphere.
To understand this new world and what they are made of, scientists must be able to detect what their atmospheres consist of.
They often do this using a telescope similar to NASA’s Hubble Telescope.
These huge satellites explore the sky and look at exoplanets that NASA believes may be of interest.
Here, the sensors on board perform different forms of analysis.
One of the most important and useful is called absorption spectroscopy.
This form of analysis measures the light that comes out of a planet’s atmosphere.
Each gas absorbs a slightly different wavelength, and when this happens, a black line appears in a full spectrum.
These lines correspond to a very specific molecule, which indicates their presence on the planet.
They are often called Fraunhofer lines after the German astronomer and physicist who discovered them in 1814.
By combining all the different wavelengths of lights, scientists can determine all the chemicals that make up a planet’s atmosphere.
The key is that what is missing, provides clues to know what is present.
It is vitally important that this is done using space telescopes, as the Earth’s atmosphere would interfere.
The absorption of chemicals into our atmosphere would skew the sample, which is why it is important to study light before it has had a chance to reach Earth.
It is often used to search for helium, sodium and even oxygen in alien atmospheres.
This diagram shows how light passing through a star and passing through the atmosphere of an exoplanet produces Fraunhofer lines that indicate the presence of key compounds such as sodium or helium.