Hubble showcases its capabilities again

Jun 23, 2010 17:01 GMT  ·  By
The N11 stellar nursery in the Large Magellanic Cloud, as seen by Hubble's ACS
   The N11 stellar nursery in the Large Magellanic Cloud, as seen by Hubble's ACS

The Hubble space telescope has been in Earth's orbit for more than 20 years. Over the years, it captured impressive views of the Universe that were later to become iconic images, present in classrooms throughout the world. After five service missions to repair it, the observatory is currently working at peak capabilities. In a recent series of studies, astronomers used the telescope to look at the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the galaxies nearest to the Milky Way. They obtained one of the most detailed views to date of the bright nebula bubble N11, one of the most beautiful in the LMC.

Experts generally consider this particular nebula, whose full name is LHA 120-N 11, to be one of the most beautiful in the LMC. But its incredible details were only recently revealed to astronomers, thanks to the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instrument aboard the Hubble. This camera was capable of snapping five different images of the nebula, and then pieced them together to obtain one of the most incredible views of N11. The ACS was not suited for this type of observations until last year.

In May 2009, the space shuttle Atlantis flew the fifth and final repair mission to the telescope. Hubble received a new Wide Field Camera, gyroscopes, protective coatings, and also got its ACS repaired. Basically, this last mission – which had a price tag of more than $1.2 billion – left the observatory in better state than when it was first launched. It was these capabilities that allowed the team managing Hubble to snap the new images of N11, which is also nicknamed the Bean Nebula. According to current estimates, the nebula has a diameter of no less than 1,000 light-years.

The massive space structure, which was first investigated in 1956, is believed to be the point of origin for some of the most massive star produced in the LMC. It is filled with massive clouds of cosmic dust and hydrogen gas, which continuously concentrate in increasingly large blobs, which then collapse and ignite. This is the main mechanism through which stars are produced, and the massive reserves still detected in N11 imply that the nebula will continue to form massive stars for eons to come, Space reports.