Hubble Catches Some Cosmic Fireworks

Roland Piquepaille writes "On this Fourth of July, it's usual -- at least in the U.S. -- to watch fireworks. But I want to invite you to see very special ones, celestial fireworks discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronomy Magazine has the story. "In a newly released image, the Hubble Space Telescope peers into a neighboring galaxy to capture a gorgeous view of a supernova remnant called LMC N 49. Also known as DEM L 190, the nebula lies within the Large Magellanic Cloud approximately 160,000 light-years away." Read this summary for more details and a nice illustration from the Hubble Heritage Team. You can find additional tons of information at this Hubble Heritage Project page."

Comments

here is another one

[rkz]

here is another cosmic firework captured by hubble.

I was looking at this phenomenon earlier today and found out what actually causes these things.
Apparently somewhere in our Universe subatomic particles are being created with huge amounts of kinetic energy, these sparks are sent flying between galaxies at near light speeds, and these fireworks are what you see before they cool down and become invisible to telescopes.

Re:The picture have been forged.

[dpp]

I don't want to look at cute picture. I want to see the real one, in false color if the picture show something not in the visible spectrum with a scale saying what's the meaning of each color.

No, the picture hasn't been "forged".

You're correct that the image was constructed from specific wavelengths with certain colours applied. Try going directly to the Hubble Heritage pages for this image. If you read the caption for the image you'll see:

The Hubble Heritage image of N 49 is a color representation of data taken in July 2000, with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Color filters were used to sample light emitted by sulfur ([S II]), oxygen ([O III]), and hydrogen (H-alpha). The color image has been superimposed on a black-and-white image of stars in the same field also taken with Hubble.

The fast facts will tell you the exact filters used:

F502N ([O III]), F656N (Ha), F673N ([S II]), F814W (I), F547M (Strömgren y)

The numbers tell you the wavelengths in nanometres. They have possibly assigned red, green, and blue in the same wavelength order, in which case red=sulphur, green=H-alpha, and blue=oxygen.

If you really don't want to look at "cute pictures", don't look at the public outreach images. Take a closer look the original images.

Hope this helps.

For those looking for wall paper or a poster

[4/3PI*R^3]

click HERE for various resolutions of this image.

Re:What's with all these doctored photos?!?

[1fitz2many]

I bet it's hard to find a professional astronomer who wouldn't produce false-color images. The reason multiple images have to be combined to get color information is that most astronomical detectors just count photons -- they don't sense color information. Astronomers doing imaging work get color info by taking exposures behind different filters and combining them with some sort of color map.

I'm sure the color table in this image was adjusted to bring out features, but real astronomers do this all the time (but they are more systematic about it...). Actually, many sources are very vibrant due to the fact that different molecules and ionization species emit at certain spectral lines. There are just huge clouds that are effectively neon lamps -- taking the energy from the supernova explosion and turning it into light at spectral lines.

Also, the "lens flares" you refer to are real. They are diffraction effects due to the support structure of the telescope. No real image of a star field would have points of light for stellar images.

Personally, I appreciate the PR efforts. Opportunities for the general public to get some sort of appreciation for science, whether it's just a pretty picture or not, is effectively raising the public awareness. Maybe the scientific value of this image is in inspiring the astronomers of the future.