Hubble Images of 2007 OR10: This sequence of images, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3, shows a moon circling the trans-Neptunian object 2007 OR10. The top four images were taken on 6 November 2009; the bottom four on 18 September 2010. As 2007 OR10 orbits the Sun, it changes position with respect to the background stars (the bright objects that change from panel to panel). The snapshots reveal that the moon moves with the trans-Neptunian object, proving that it is gravitationally bound to the larger body. 2007 OR10 is the third-largest known trans-Neptunian object, behind Pluto and Eris, and the largest unnamed world in the Solar System. The pair is located in the Kuiper Belt, a realm of icy debris left over from the solar system's formation. The trans-Neptunian object is about 1520 kilometres across; the moon is estimated to be 240 kilometres to 400 kilometres in diameter. 2007 OR10, like Pluto, follows an eccentric orbit, but it is currently three times farther than Pluto is from the Sun.

Name: 2007 OR10
Type: Early Universe : Interplanetary Body : Asteroid
Category: Solar System
Release date: 19 May 2017, 12:20
Credit: NASA, ESA, C. Kiss (Konkoly Observatory), and J. Stansberry (STScI)

N6946-BH1 failed supernova (artist's impression): This artist’s impression shows the final stages in the life of a supermassive star that fails to explode as a supernova but instead implodes under gravity to form a black hole. From left to right: the massive star has evolved to a red supergiant, the envelope of the star is ejected and expands, producing a cold, red transient source surrounding the newly formed black hole. Some residual material may fall onto the black hole, as illustrated by the stream and the disc, potentially powering some optical and infrared emissions years after the collapse.

Name: N6946-BH1
Type: Local Universe : Star : Evolutionary Stage : Black Hole
Category: Quasars and Black HolesStars
Release date: 26 May 2017, 13:42
Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. Jeffries (STScI)

N6946-BH1: This pair of visible-light and near-infrared images taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope show the giant star N6946-BH1 before and after it vanished out of sight by imploding to form a black hole. The left image shows the 25 solar mass star as it looked in 2007. In 2009, the star shot up in brightness to become over 1 million times more luminous than our Sun for several months. But then it seemed to vanish, as seen in the right panel image from 2015. A small amount of infrared light has been detected from where the star used to be. This radiation probably comes from debris falling onto a black hole. The black hole is located 22 million light-years away in the spiral galaxy NGC 6946.

Name: N6946-BH1
Type: Local Universe : Star : Evolutionary Stage : Black Hole
Category: Quasars and Black HolesStars
Release date: 26 May 2017, 13:42
Credit: NASA, ESA, and C. Kochanek (OSU)

Cloudy versus clear atmospheres on two exoplanets: This illustration compares the atmospheres of two "hot Jupiter"-class exoplanets orbiting very closely to different sunlike stars. The planets are too far away for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to resolve any details. Instead, astronomers measured how the light from the parent stars is filtered through each planet's atmosphere. Hubble was used to measure the spectral fingerprint caused by the presence of water vapor in the atmosphere. The planet HAT-P-38 b did have a water signature, indicating the upper atmosphere is free of clouds or hazes. By contrast, a very similar hot Jupiter, WASP-67 b, showed no water vapor, suggesting that most of the planet's atmosphere is masked by high-altitude clouds. These results are not peer-reviewed and were presented at the 230th meeting of the AAS.

Name: HAT-P-38 b, WASP-67 b
Type: Milky Way : Planet
Category: Exoplanets
Release date: 6 June 2017, 12:01
Credit: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levy (STScI)

Cloudy versus clear atmospheres on exoplanets WASP-67 b and HAT-P-38 b: This diagram compares observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of two "hot Jupiter"-class planets orbiting very closely to different sunlike stars. Astronomers measured how light from each parent star is filtered through each planet's atmosphere. Hubble near-infrared observations were used to measure the spectral fingerprint caused by the presence of water vapor in the atmosphere. The exoplanet HAT-P-38 b does show a water signature — indicated by the absorption-feature peak in the spectrum. This is interpreted as indicating the upper atmosphere is free of clouds or hazes. By contrast, a very similar hot Jupiter, WASP-67 b, has a flat spectrum that lacks any water-absorption feature. This suggests that most of the planet's atmosphere is masked by high-altitude clouds. These results are not peer-reviewed and were presented at the 230th meeting of the AAS.

Name: HAT-P-38 b, WASP-67 b
Type: Milky Way : Planet
Category: Exoplanets
Release date: 6 June 2017, 12:01
Credit: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levy (STScI)

Hubble captures gallery of ultra-bright galaxies: These six images, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, reveal a jumble of misshapen-looking galaxies punctuated by exotic patterns such as arcs, streaks, and smeared rings. These unusual features are the stretched shapes of the brightest infrared galaxies in the Universe that are boosted by natural cosmic magnifying lenses. This effect, called gravitational lensing, occurs when the intense gravity of a massive galaxy or cluster of galaxies magnifies the light of more distant background sources. The distant, lensed galaxies are as much as 10 000 times more luminous than our Milky Way. The lensing phenomenon allows for features as small as about 100 light-years or less across to be seen in the background galaxies. The galaxies existed between 8 billion and 11.5 billion years ago, when the Universe was making stars more vigorously than it is today. The galaxies are ablaze with runaway star formation, creating more than 10 000 new stars a year. This star-birth frenzy creates lots of dust, which enshrouds the galaxies, making them too faint to detect in visible light. But they glow fiercely in infrared light, shining with the brilliance of 10 trillion to 100 trillion suns. The infrared galaxies in these images are part of a Hubble survey of 22 distant ultra-luminous infrared galaxies that were found by ground- and space-based observatories. The images were taken in infrared light by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. These results are not peer-reviewed and were presented at the 230th meeting of the AAS.

Name: J022633.98, J074851.72, J084648.55, J114329.52, J132217.52, J231356.64
Type: Early Universe : Star : Grouping : Cluster
Category: Galaxies
Release date: 7 June 2017, 11:25
Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Lowenthal (Smith College)