How LRLL 54361 flashes like a strobe light: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has made a time-lapse movie of protostar LRLL 54361 as it sends flashes of light through the surrounding nebula. This image shows: On the left, an infrared image from the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope shows LRLL 54361 inside the star-forming region IC 348 located 950 light-years away. The Spitzer Space Telescope discovered the unusual flashing protostar here. In the centre: This Hubble image resolves the detailed structure around the protostar, consisting of two cavities that are traced by light scattered off their edges above and below a dusty disk. The cavities were likely blown out of the surrounding natal envelope of dust and gas by an outflow launched near the central object. On the right: This artist’s impression represents scientists’ theory for how and why the protostar gives off these regular flashes of light. Astronomers propose that the flashes are due to material in a circumstellar disk suddenly being dumped onto the growing stars and unleashing a blast of radiation each time the stars get close to each other in their orbit.

Name: IC 348, LRLL 54361
Type: Milky Way : Star : Evolutionary Stage : Protostar
Category: IllustrationsStars
Distance: 950 light years
Release date: 7 February 2013, 19:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Muzerolle (STScI), E. Furlan (NOAO, Caltech), and R. Hurt (Caltech)

Hubble image of Abell 68: Abell 68, pictured here in infrared light, is a galaxy cluster. The effect of its gravity on light means it boosts Hubble’s power, greatly increasing’the telescopes ability to observe distant and faint objects. The fuzzy collection of blobs in the middle and upper left of the image is a swarm of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars and vast amounts of dark matter. Distorted shapes visible throughout the field of view are distant galaxies whose light has been bent and amplified by the cluster.

Name: Abell 68
Type: Early Universe : Galaxy : Grouping : Cluster
Category: Cosmology
Constellation: Pisces
Distance: 2 billion light years
Release date: 5 March 2013, 15:00
Credit: NASA & ESA. Acknowledgement: N. Rose

Annotated Hubble image of Abell 68: Abell 68, pictured here in infrared light, is a galaxy cluster. The effect of its gravity on light means it boosts Hubble’s power, extending the telescope’s ability to observe distant and faint objects. The fuzzy collection of blobs in the middle and upper left of the image is a swarm of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars and vast amounts of dark matter. Distorted shapes visible throughout the field of view are distant galaxies whose light has been bent and amplified by the cluster. Annotations: 1 and 2: This galaxy is visible twice, thanks to its light following two separate paths around an elliptical galaxy before reaching us. The image marked 2 is heavily distorted into the shape of an alien from the cult 1970s video game Space Invaders. The lensed galaxy lies at a redshift of around 1.6. The lensing galaxy significantly closer, at a redshift of around 0.26. 3: This galaxy appears to be melting, with purple liquid dripping from it. In fact, the purple droplets are clouds of gas being stripped out of the galaxy and heated up. This phenomenon, called ram pressure stripping, occurs when a galaxy passes through a denser patch of intergalactic gas, which strips out the gas from within the galaxy. 4: The series of long, light streaks here are background galaxies, the images of which have been heavily distorted by the lensing effects of the cluster in the foreground. These lie at a range of redshifts between around 2 and 6.

Name: Abell 68
Type: Early Universe : Galaxy : Grouping : Cluster
Category: Cosmology
Distance: 2 billion light years
Release date: 5 March 2013, 15:00
Credit: NASA & ESA. Acknowledgement: N. Rose

Abell 68 and its surroundings (ground-based image): This image shows observations of the area around galaxy cluster Abell 68, as seen by a ground-based telescope.

Name: Abell 68
Type: Early Universe : Cosmology
Category: Cosmology
Release date: 5 March 2013, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, Digitized Sky Survey 2

Hubble image of Messier 77: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured this vivid image of spiral galaxy Messier 77 — a galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, some 45 million light-years away from us. The streaks of red and blue in the image highlight pockets of star formation along the pinwheeling arms, with dark dust lanes stretching across the galaxy’s starry centre. The galaxy belongs to a class of galaxies known as Seyfert galaxies, which have highly ionised gas surrounding an intensely active centre.

Name: Messier 77
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Cetus
Distance: 45 million light years
Release date: 28 March 2013, 14:30
Credit: NASA, ESA & A. van der Hoeven