Hubble close-up on the Coma Cluster: In this new image Hubble peeks into the Coma Cluster, a massive gathering of galaxies located towards the constellation of Coma Berenices. This large cluster is around 350 million light-years away from us and contains over 1000 identified galaxies, the majority of which are elliptical. The bright, saucer-shaped objects surrounded by misty halos in this image are galaxies, each of them host to many millions of stars. The background of the image is full of distant galaxies, many of them with spiral shapes, that are located much further away and do not belong to the cluster. Visible in this image are three galaxies within the Coma Cluster: IC 4041 (far left), IC 4042 (centre), and GP 236 (right). A version of this image was entered into the Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Nick Rose.

Name: Coma Cluster, GP 236, IC 4041, IC 4042
Type: Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : EllipticalLocal Universe : Galaxy : Grouping : Cluster
Category: Galaxies
Constellation: Coma Berenices
Distance: 350 million light years
Release date: 13 January 2014, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; D. Carter (LJMU) Acknowledgement: Nick Rose

Seeing double: In this new Hubble image two objects are clearly visible, shining brightly. When they were first discovered in 1979, they were thought to be separate objects — however, astronomers soon realised that these twins are a little too identical! They are close together, lie at the same distance from us, and have surprisingly similar properties. The reason they are so similar is not some bizarre coincidence; they are in fact the same object. These cosmic doppelgangers make up a double quasar known as QSO 0957+561, also known as the "Twin Quasar", which lies just under 14 billion light-years from Earth. Quasars are the intensely powerful centres of distant galaxies. So, why are we seeing this quasar twice? Some 4 billion light-years from Earth — and directly in our line of sight — is the huge galaxy YGKOW G1. This galaxy was the first ever observed gravitational lens, an object with a mass so great that it can bend the light from objects lying behind it. This phenomenon not only allows us to see objects that would otherwise be too remote, in cases like this it also allows us to see them twice over. Along with the cluster of galaxies in which it resides, YGKOW G1 exerts an enormous gravitational force. This doesn't just affect the galaxy's shape, the stars that it forms, and the objects around it — it affects the very space it sits in, warping and bending the environment and producing bizarre effects, such as this quasar double image. This observation of gravitational lensing, the first of its kind, meant more than just the discovery of an impressive optical illusion allowing telescopes like Hubble to effectively see behind an intervening galaxy. It was evidence for Einstein's theory of general relativity. This theory had identified gravitational lensing as one of its only observable effects, but until this observation no such lensing had been observed since the idea was first mooted in 1936.

Name: QSO B0957+0561, Twin quasar, YGKOW G1
Type: Early Universe : Galaxy : Activity : AGN : Quasar
Category: Quasars and Black Holes
Constellation: Ursa Major
Distance: 14 billion light years
Release date: 20 January 2014, 10:00
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Hubble’s modern art: A piece of art? A time-lapse photo? A flickering light show? At first glance, this image looks nothing like the images that we are used to seeing from Hubble. The distinctive splashes of colour must surely be a piece of modern art, or an example of the photographic technique of "light painting". Or, could they be the trademark tracks of electrically charged particles in a bubble chamber? On a space theme, how about a time-lapse of the paths of orbiting satellites? The answer? None of the above. In fact, this is a genuine frame that Hubble relayed back from an observing session. Hubble uses a Fine Guidance System (FGS) in order to maintain stability whilst performing observations. A set of gyroscopes measures the attitude of the telescope, which is then corrected by a set of reaction wheels. In order to compensate for gyroscopic drift, the FGS locks onto a fixed point in space, which is referred to as a guide star. It is suspected that in this case, Hubble had locked onto a bad guide star, potentially a double star or binary. This caused an error in the tracking system, resulting in this remarkable picture of brightly coloured stellar streaks. The prominent red streaks are from stars in the globular cluster NGC 288. It seems that even when Hubble makes a mistake, it can still kick-start our imagination. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Judy Schmidt.

Type: Unspecified : Sky Phenomenon : Light PhenomenonUnspecified : Technology : Observatory : Instrument
Category: Miscellaneous
Release date: 27 January 2014, 10:00
Credit: NASA, ESAAcknowledgements: A. Sarajedini (University of Florida) and Judy Schmidt.

A nursery for unruly young stars: This striking new image, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, reveals a star in the process of forming within the Chamaeleon cloud. This young star is throwing off narrow streams of gas from its poles — creating this ethereal object known as HH 909A. These speedy outflows collide with the slower surrounding gas, lighting up the region. When new stars form, they gather material hungrily from the space around them. A young star will continue to feed its huge appetite until it becomes massive enough to trigger nuclear fusion reactions in its core, which light the star up brightly. Before this happens, new stars undergo a phase during which they violently throw bursts of material out into space. This material is ejected as narrow jets that streak away into space at breakneck speeds of hundreds of kilometres per second, colliding with nearby gas and dust and lighting up the region. The resulting narrow, patchy regions of faintly glowing nebulosity are known as Herbig-Haro objects. They are very short-lived structures, and can be seen to visibly change and evolve over a matter of years (heic1113) — just the blink of an eye on astronomical timescales. These structures are very common within star-forming regions like the Orion Nebula, or the Chameleon I molecular cloud — home to the subject of this image. The Chameleon cloud is located in the southern constellation of Chameleon, just over 500 light-years from Earth. Astronomers have found numerous Herbig-Haro objects embedded in this stellar nursery, most of them emanating from stars with masses similar to that of the Sun. A few are thought to be tied to less massive objects such as brown dwarfs, which are "failed" stars that did not hit the critical mass to spark reactions in their centres. A version of this image was entered into the Hubble's Hidden Treasures image processing competition by contestant Judy Schmidt.

Name: Cha I, HH 909A
Type: Milky Way : Star : Evolutionary Stage : Young Stellar ObjectMilky Way : Star : Circumstellar Material : Outflow
Category: Stars
Constellation: Chamaeleon
Release date: 3 February 2014, 10:00
Credit: NASA & ESA.Acknowledgements: Kevin Luhman (Pennsylvania State University), and Judy Schmidt