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Hubble Space Telescope, a joint project by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), has been witnessing mysterious events in the Universe for over three decades. It recently captured a stunning image of a triple galaxy merger in progress some 681 million light-years away from Earth, in the Cancer constellation. The image also shows a tumultuous mixture of star formation and tidal distortions caused by the gravitational interactions of the galactic trio. At the centre, the image is obscured by a thick cloud of dust, but…

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stellar image of two interacting galaxies some 200 million light-years away from Earth. The pair is located in the Pegasus constellation, named after a winged horse from Greek mythology. The image shared by NASA on its Instagram page shows a large spiral galaxy (NGC 7469), and its diminutive companion (IC 5283). NGC 7469 is host to an active, supermassive black hole and a bright ring of star clusters.Together, these galaxies are called Arp 298. The “Arp” in this pair's name…

Hubble Space Telescope never lets us down when it comes to taking striking images of distant stars, full-fledged galaxies, and other stellar objects. Stunning us once again, the telescope has shared an image of a picturesque phenomenon occurring on a young star. What we see is a jet of gas like no other. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have called it a “wispy structure”, which is typically called the Herbig-Haro object (HH34). ESA shared the photo on Twitter and wrote, “A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of…

If something is close to our view, we tend to lose perspective. To have a clear picture, we need to create distance between ourselves and the view. Astronomers know the importance of visual separation far better than anyone else since they keep looking at the vastness of the Universe most of the time. But they too face problems. What if they wanted to see how our Milky Way looked? Being inside this galaxy makes us lose sight of what NASA calls the “big picture” of our home. True, how could we perceive how our home looks…

NASA's Hubble telescope, which helped scientists discover some of the amazing aspects of space, has captured a stunning view of an active black hole covered behind tendrils of dark dust. The black hole lies in the spiral galaxy NGC 7172, located about 110 million light-years away from Earth in the ancient, but small constellation Piscis Austrinus. The dark dust passes through the centre of the galaxy, obscuring its luminous heart. This makes NGC 7172 appear to be nothing more than a normal spiral galaxy when viewed from…

The James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful observatory ever sent to space, is gearing up to begin its science mission this summer. In the run-up to that milestone, work is underway to deploy the many instruments aboard the $10 billion (roughly Rs. 76,165 crore) telescope. One of those instruments is NIRSpec, the Near Infrared Spectrograph. It is just about to start delivering data to scientists waiting here desperately to see the cosmos in a different light. The spectrograph is one of the most powerful instruments…