Sedna mystery deepens as Hubble offers best look at farthest planetoid: The region of sky where Sedna is moving from 2003 to 2005.

Name: Sedna
Type: Solar System : Interplanetary Body
Category: Solar System
Release date: 14 April 2004, 19:00
Credit: NASA, ESA and M. Brown (Caltech)

Sedna mystery deepens as Hubble offers best look at farthest planetoid (artist's impression): This is an artist's impression of noontime on Sedna, the farthest known planetoid from the Sun. Over 8 billion miles away (almost 13 billion kilometres), the Sun is reduced to a brilliant pinpoint of light that is 100 times brighter than the full Moon. (The Sun would actually be the angular size of Saturn as seen from Earth, way too small to be resolved with the human eye.) The dim spindle-shaped glow of dust around the Sun defines the ecliptic plane of the solar system where the major planets dwell. To the left, the hazy plane of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, stretches into the sky. The background constellations are Virgo and Libra. At this distance the Sun's feeble rays are nearly one four-thousandth the intensity of what they are at Earth. This means that Sedna is eternally cold at minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit, which means that the planetoid is airless and icy. Life, as we know it, could never live here. But if anything could survive, it would have an intriguing global view of the entire solar system. A fifth-magnitude object, barely three degrees from the Sun (the pinpoint at the two o'clock position) is Jupiter. Saturn is also visible as a dim star. Earth would be only half a degree from the Sun and, at ninth magnitude, only be visible in powerful binoculars. To our imaginary "Sednian" astronomers, all the planets would be in inferior orbits (meaning interior to Sedna's orbit). This means they would best be seen in the predawn morning sky and post sunset evening sky, but never at midnight.

Name: Sedna
Type: Solar System : Interplanetary Body : Dwarf planet
Category: Solar System
Release date: 14 April 2004, 19:00
Credit: NASA, ESA and Adolf Schaller

The lure of the rings: Resembling a diamond-encrusted bracelet, a ring of brilliant blue star clusters wraps around the yellowish nucleus of what was once a normal spiral galaxy in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This image is being released to commemorate the 14th anniversary of Hubble's launch on April 24, 1990 and its deployment from the space shuttle Discovery on April 25, 1990. The sparkling blue ring is 150,000 light-years in diameter, making it larger than our entire home galaxy, the Milky Way. The galaxy, cataloged as AM 0644-741, is a member of the class of so- called "ring galaxies." It lies 300 million light-years away in the direction of the southern constellation Dorado.

Name: AM 0644-741
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Lenticular
Category: AnniversaryGalaxies
Constellation: Volans
Distance: 300 million light years
Release date: 22 April 2004, 15:03
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)

Full HST ACS Image of AM 0644-741: Resembling a diamond-encrusted bracelet, a ring of brilliant blue star clusters wraps around the yellowish nucleus of what was once a normal spiral galaxy in this new image from the NASA/ESAHubble Space Telescope (HST). This image is being released to commemorate the 14th anniversary of Hubble's launch on April 24, 1990 and its deployment from the space shuttle Discovery on April 25, 1990. The sparkling blue ring is 150,000 light-years in diameter, making it larger than our entire home galaxy, the Milky Way. The galaxy, cataloged as AM 0644-741, is a member of the class of so- called "ring galaxies." It lies 300 million light-years away in the direction of the southern constellation Dorado.

Name: AM 0644-741
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Lenticular
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Volans
Distance: 300 million light years
Release date: 22 April 2004, 15:03
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)

Evolution of spiral galaxies: This image shows the evolution of spiral galaxies, from fully formed structures to disheveled collections of stars just beginning to form. These galaxies were captured in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey and are presented in the IMAX short film "Hubble: Galaxies Across Space and Time." It takes billions of years for the light of a distant galaxy to reach Earth. Consequently, we see such galaxies as they were in the past, and can thus assemble a rough pictorial history of galaxy evolution.

Name: Galaxies
Type: Unspecified : Galaxy
Category: Galaxies
Release date: 24 June 2004, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, F. Summers and Z. Levay (STScI )

The heart of the Trifid Nebula: The Trifid Nebula, cataloged by astronomers as Messier 20 or NGC 6514, is a well-known region of star formation lying within our own Milky Way Galaxy. It is called the Trifid because the nebula is overlain by three bands of obscuring interstellar dust, giving it a trisected appearance as seen in small telescopes. The Trifid lies about 9,000 light-years (2,700 parsecs) from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.

Name: Messier 20, NGC 6514, Trifid Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Emission : H II Region
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Sagittarius
Release date: 3 June 2004, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)

Trifid Nebula: The Trifid Nebula-so called, due to it being divided into 3 lobes. The lobes appear to be separated due to bands of dark nebulae.

Name: M 20, Messier 20, NGC 6514, Trifid Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Emission : H II Region
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Sagittarius
Distance: 5500 light years
Release date: 3 June 2004, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)

Full HST WFPC2 image of Trifid Nebula: Three huge intersecting dark lanes of interstellar dust make the Trifid Nebula one of the most recognizable and striking star birth regions in the night sky. The dust, silhouetted against glowing gas and illuminated by starlight, cradles the bright stars at the heart of the Trifid. This nebula, also known as Messier 20 and NGC 6514, lies within our own Milky Way Galaxy about 9,000 light-years  from Earth, in the constellation Sagittarius. This image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, offers a close-up view of the center of the Trifid Nebula, near the intersection of the dust bands, where a group of recently formed, massive, bright stars is easily visible.

Name: M 20, Messier 20, NGC 6514, Trifid Nebula
Type: Milky Way : Nebula : Appearance : Emission : H II Region
Category: Nebulae
Constellation: Sagittarius
Distance: 5500 light years
Release date: 3 June 2004, 15:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI )

Hubble+Chandra: Object #3 53.057987-27.833524: The combined power of NASA's  Great Observatories - the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray  Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope - have been combined to  find a hidden population of supermassive black holes in the universe. It took the penetrating view of Spitzer to finally uncover the black holes and their surrounding galaxies.

Name: AGN, GOODS field
Type: Early Universe : Galaxy : Activity : AGNEarly Universe : Cosmology : Morphology : Deep Field
Category: Quasars and Black Holes
Release date: 1 June 2004, 17:00
Credit: NASA, ESA, A. M. Koekemoer (STScI), M. Dickinson (NOAO) and The GOODS Team