The Hubble Space Telescope turned 34 years old with a surprise celebration

Noble and enduring Hubble Space Telescope, Joint mission to a pot And the European Space Agency Who has always amazed scientists with his beautiful observations of the vast universe, has completed 34 years of service.

Powerful space observatory It was launched Aboard the shuttle Discovery on mission STS-31 On April 24, 1990, Planned to last 15 years which has been extended to more than double its duration.

To celebrate the 34th anniversary, astronomers remotely captured a snapshot of the planet The Little Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 76 or M76, It is located 3,400 light-years away in the northern polar constellation Perseus. The stunning new image of bright gas emanating from a dying star, in this case turns out to look like…Cosmic dumbbell“.

Classified as a planetary nebula, M76 is an expanding shell of bright gases ejected from a dying red giant star. The star eventually collapses and becomes a hot, super-dense white dwarf. Planetary nebulae are not related to planets, but they have this name because 18th-century astronomers, using low-powered telescopes, thought this type of object looked like a planet.

Planetary nebulae usually have a round structure and were named because they originally resembled the disks from which planets are formed, when French astronomer Charles Messier first discovered them in 1764.

Pierre Mischin discovered the nebula The Little Bell in 1780 It was first observed in detail by astronomers in 1891. Since then, this photogenic nebula has become a favorite among professional and amateur astronomers due to its unique shape.

M76 consists of a ring The rim is seen as the central bar structure, with two lobes in each ring slot. Before the star burns up, it expels a ring of gas and dust. The ring was likely sculpted by the effects of a star that previously had a binary companion.

This displaced material created a thick disk of dust and gas along the plane of its companion's orbit. The hypothetical companion star is not visible in the Hubble image It would have been swallowed up later by the central star. The disc would be forensic evidence of astral cannibalism.

The primary star collapses to form a white dwarf. It is one of the hottest stellar remnants known, with a scorching temperature of 250,000 degrees Fahrenheit, 24 times the surface temperature of our Sun. The whizzing white dwarf can be seen as a dot in the center of the nebula. The star visible in the projection below is not part of the nebula.

Trapped by the disk, Two lobes of hot gas escape from the top and bottom of the “belt”, Along the star's rotation axis perpendicular to the disk. They are propelled by a hurricane-like flow of material from the dying star, which is hurtling through space at 3.2 million kilometers per hour. This is fast enough to travel from Earth to the Moon in just over seven minutes.

These abundant “stellar winds” collide with cooler, slower-moving gas Which was ejected early in the star's life, when it was a red giant. The intense ultraviolet radiation of the superheated star causes the gases to glow. The red color comes from nitrogen and the blue from oxygen.

according to Our solar system is 4.6 billion years old, and the entire nebula is just a blip in the cosmic history of time. It will disappear in about 15,000 years. If researchers confirm that the nebula contains evidence of a case of cosmic cannibalism, it could prove the existence of a long theoretical companion to the red giant.

The companion star, which was orbiting the red giant, is not visible in the Hubble image. According to a statement by NASA. Astronomers believe that the red giant swallowed its companion By studying the ring, they were able to obtain “forensic evidence” of this act of cosmic cannibalism.

Since its collapse, the red giant star has turned into a dead stellar remnant known as an ultra-dense white dwarf star. The white dwarf has a scorching temperature of 138,871 degrees Celsius, making it 24 times hotter than the surface of our Sun and one of the hottest white dwarf stars known.

Since its launch in 1990, Hubble has made 1.6 million observations of more than 53,000 astronomical objects. To date, the Mikulski Archive of Space Telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, contains 184 terabytes of processed, scientifically ready data for astronomers around the world to use in research and analysis.

44,000 scientific articles have been published based on Hubble observations. The space telescope is the most scientifically productive astrophysics mission in NASA's history. The demand for use of Hubble is so high that the demand for it currently exceeds six to one.

Most of Hubble's discoveries were not expected before launchSuch as supermassive black holes, the atmospheres of exoplanets, dark matter gravitational lensing, the presence of dark energy, and the frequent formation of planets among stars.

Hubble will continue research in these areas and will benefit from them Its unique ability to expose ultraviolet radiation to topics such as solar system phenomena, Supernova explosions, formation of exoplanetary atmospheres and dynamical emission of galaxies. Hubble's research continues to leverage its long base of observations of solar system objects, stellar variable phenomena, and other exotic astrophysics of the universe.

“The space telescope is The most scientifically productive astrophysics mission in NASA history“, According to a NASA statement.

Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope They work as complements to each other, Collecting observations across different wavelengths of light to get a clearer, deeper view of the universe, as astronomers try to unravel the mysteries surrounding supernovas, distant galaxies, exoplanets and other celestial anomalies.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is designed to complement Hubble, not a replacement. Future Hubble research will also do this You will benefit from the opportunity to create synergies with Webbwhich observes the universe in infrared light.

The combined wavelength coverage of the two space telescopes expands pioneering research in areas such as protostellar disks, exoplanet formation, unusual supernovae, galactic nuclei, and the chemistry of the distant universe.