Hubble Archives

(LEFT) Combined 130 s F350LP image of 3I/ATLAS showing diffuse asymmetric emission to the north west. (RIGHT) Same image contoured, with scale bar and direction arrows shown. The yellow and green arrows mark, respectively, the projected negative heliocentric velocity vector and the projected anti-solar direction. Note that the bulk of the dust is sunward of the nucleus. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Comets and Asteroids, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Update: Hubble Space Telescope Observations of the Interstellar Interloper 3I/ATLAS

by Keith CowingAugust 20, 2025

We present high angular resolution observations of the third known interstellar interloper, 3I/ATLAS, from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Detection Of CO2, CO, and H2O In The Atmosphere Of The Warm Sub-Saturn HAT-P-12b

by Keith CowingAugust 18, 2025August 18, 2025

The chemical composition of warm gas giant exoplanet atmospheres (with Teq < 1000 K) is not well known due to the lack of observational constraints. HAT-P-12 b is a warm, […]

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Comets and Asteroids, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Status Report

Hubble Space Telescope Observations of the Interstellar Interloper 3I/ATLAS

by Keith CowingAugust 7, 2025August 7, 2025

We present high angular resolution observations of the third known interstellar interloper, 3I/ATLAS, from the Hubble Space Telescope.

This image of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera on 21 July 2025. The scale bar is labeled in arcseconds, which is a measure of angular distance on the sky. One arcsecond is equal to an angular measurement of 1/3600 of one degree. There are 60 arcminutes in a degree and 60 arcseconds in an arcminute (the full Moon has an angular diameter of about 30 arcminutes). The actual size of an object that covers one arcsecond on the sky depends on its distance from the telescope. The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped relative to direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above). This image shows visible wavelengths of light. Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA); Image Processing: J. DePasquale (STScI)

Astronomy & Telescopes, Comets and Asteroids, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Press Release

Hubble Makes Size Estimate Of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

by Keith CowingAugust 7, 2025August 7, 2025

A team of astronomers has taken the sharpest-ever picture of the unexpected interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, using the crisp vision of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

a, NIRCam false-colour image, where each colour channel was constructed by stacking NIRCam filters as annotated. The placement of the NIRSpec micro-shutters is shown in white (nearly identical across the all visits). Dashed coloured circles indicate the 0.3 "-diameter apertures used to extract the CIRC2 photometry. The [O iii] 88 µm emission and the MIRI/F560W image are overlaid with red and green contours respectively, both drawn at 3σ-4σ-5σ. A red (green) hatched ellipse shows the ALMA restoring beam (F560W point spread function). A horizontal bar indicates a physical scale of 1 kpc at z = 11.122. b, SEDs of the main component (A) of JADES-GS-z11- 0, as observed by NIRCam, MIRI, and NIRSpec/PRISM (Section 2.1), as well as the faint neighbouring source (B) whose photometry (filter curves drawn at the bottom) is consistent with having the same redshift. The best-fit bagpipes models are shown as solid (component A) and dashed (B) coloured lines, with squares indicating the model photometry. c, Best-fit model SFHs of the two components, with shading representing 1σ uncertainty. The dotted black line and grey shading illustrates the rising SFH prior based on dark matter halo accretion (see text for details), scaled to the stellar mass of component A. -- astro-ph.GA

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Status Report

On The Origins Of Oxygen: ALMA And JWST Characterise The Multi-phase, Metal-enriched, Star-bursting Medium Within A ‘Normal’ z>11 Galaxy

by Keith CowingAugust 2, 2025August 2, 2025

The unexpectedly high abundance of galaxies at z>11 revealed by JWST has sparked a debate on the nature of early galaxies and the physical mechanisms regulating their formation.

Family portrait of the five planets in the L 98-59 system showing their transit (or absence of transit) observed by TESS in the top panels and their Doppler signature from HARPS (red circles) and ESPRESSO (white/black circles for pre/post data) in the bottom panels. Only the error bars for ESPRESSO are shown to improve visibility. Black curves represent best-fit models from the transit analysis (top) and joint RV–TTV fit (bottom, using fixed orbital inclinations, see Sect. 4.5). For L 98- 59 e and f, 1000 predicted transit curves are shown in red using posterior samples from the RV–TTV fit and radii estimated from their minimum masses using spright (Parviainen et al. 2024). Planets e and f do not transit L 98-59. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Detailed Architecture Of The L 98-59 System And Confirmation Of A Fifth Planet In The Habitable Zone

by Keith CowingJuly 16, 2025July 16, 2025

The L 98-59 system, identified by TESS in 2019, features three transiting exoplanets in compact orbits of 2.253, 3.691, and 7.451 days around an M3V star, with an outer 12.83-day […]

Phase-folded radial velocities of the planets in the L 98-59 system. (a): L 98-59.06. (b): L 98-59 b. (c): L 98-59 c. (d)t: L 98-59 d. (e): L 98-59 e. (f): L 98-59 f. -- astro-ph.EP

Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report

Confirmation Of A Non-transiting Planet In The Habitable Zone Of The Nearby M dwarf L 98-59

by Keith CowingJuly 11, 2025

Only 40 exoplanetary systems with five or more planets are currently known. These systems are crucial for our understanding of planet formation and planet-planet interaction.

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Rocky Worlds DDT Updates: New Targets, Upcoming Observations, and More

by Keith CowingJuly 9, 2025July 9, 2025

The Rocky worlds DDT Core Implementation Team (CIT) at STScI, along with the external Science Advisory Council (SAC), have been hard at work to make progress on this exciting program, […]

Distance vs. Stellar Mass for over 15,000 known galaxies out to 50 Mpc (Ohlson et al. 2024). Galaxies are colorcoded by their Hubble “T” Type, with early type galaxies T < 0 and late-type galaxies T > 0. The three stellar luminosity depth limits – RGB, sub-Red Clump, and sub-oMSTO – are shown as lines, corresponding to the distances where they are achievable for massive galaxies, and color-coded according to Fig. 1. The distances for these 3 depths achievable with HST and JWST are shown as dashed lines, while those achievable with HWO are shown as solid lines. The increase in galaxy diversity accessible from JWST→HWO is striking. The color bimodality of galaxies (e.g., Baldry et al. 2004) is visible within HWO’s reach, as is the Virgo Cluster which is notable as a vertical line of enhanced density. -- astro-ph.GA

Astronomy & Telescopes, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Resolving Individual Stars in Nearby Large Galaxies with the Habitable Worlds Observatory

by Keith CowingJuly 5, 2025July 5, 2025

The varied and dynamic evolutionary histories of galaxies give rise to the stunning diversity in their properties that we observe in the present-day universe.

(From Lorenzo et al. (2022)) RGB composite image of Sextans A made with Hα (red) and V bands (green) from Massey et al. (2007), and GALEX FUV (blue). The LITTLE THINGS neutral hydrogen map (Hunter et al. 2012) is overlaid in white. OB stars catalogued in Lorenzo et al. (2022) are color-coded according to their spectral type and with different symbols based on their luminosity class. The LUMOS field-of-view is overlaid. In 100h, HWO could obtained FUV and NUV spectra of most of the stars shown in this image with S/N > 20. -- astro-ph.GA

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Probing The Variations Of Interstellar Dust Abundance And Properties Within And Between Galaxies With HWO UV Spectroscopy In The Local Volume

by Keith CowingJuly 4, 2025July 4, 2025

The cycle of metals between the gas and the dust phases in the neutral interstellar medium (ISM) is an integral part of the baryon cycle in galaxies.

Hubble

Update: Hubble Space Telescope Observations of the Interstellar Interloper 3I/ATLAS

Detection Of CO2, CO, and H2O In The Atmosphere Of The Warm Sub-Saturn HAT-P-12b

Hubble Space Telescope Observations of the Interstellar Interloper 3I/ATLAS

Hubble Makes Size Estimate Of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

On The Origins Of Oxygen: ALMA And JWST Characterise The Multi-phase, Metal-enriched, Star-bursting Medium Within A ‘Normal’ z>11 Galaxy

Detailed Architecture Of The L 98-59 System And Confirmation Of A Fifth Planet In The Habitable Zone

Confirmation Of A Non-transiting Planet In The Habitable Zone Of The Nearby M dwarf L 98-59

Rocky Worlds DDT Updates: New Targets, Upcoming Observations, and More

Resolving Individual Stars in Nearby Large Galaxies with the Habitable Worlds Observatory

Probing The Variations Of Interstellar Dust Abundance And Properties Within And Between Galaxies With HWO UV Spectroscopy In The Local Volume

Cracks In A Martian Crater’s Ice

Stellar Tidal Systematics In Apsidal-motion Searches For Circumbinary Planets: CH Ind And SW CMa

Chondrule Formation In The Outer Disk From The Primary Three-dimensional Chemical Composition Of CM Chondrules

Habitable Worlds Observatory’s Concept and Technology Maturation: Initial Feasibility and Trade Space Exploration

First Look at a Time-Series Observation with New NIRISS SOSS Multistripe Subarrays