>>INTERVIEWER: Far, far away in our own galaxy, cosmic forces are awakening in a newborn
star seen by the Hubble Space Telescope, and here to show us this new
image and tell us a little more about Hubble is Dr. Deborah Padgett, NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center. Thanks for joining us. >>DEBORAH: Thank you. [lightsaber noise]
[lightsaber turns off]
>>INTERVIEWER: So NASA released a new image that some are calling
a "cosmic lightsaber". What are you seeing in this image? >>DEBORAH: Ok, well
deep inside a dark, dusty cloud near the Orion Nebula,
new stars are being formed as gas collapses under gravity
to form a baby star.
Most of that material falls directly onto the star, but some of it
interacts with the magnetic field of the star and shoots out on the star's
poles, like a double-bladed lightsaber slicing through the clouds.
>>INTERVIEWER: Can you show us some of Hubble's most beautiful images of
stars and galaxies far, far away? >>DEBORAH: Well, we just saw
an image of a star-forming region in our galaxy, but as you look outside
of our galaxy, you see other galaxies like our own barred-spiral
with star formation along the arms of the spiral. When some of these
galaxies collide, it triggers a tremendous burst of star formation,
and when Hubble focused in on a tiny patch of the sky,
for, and looked at it for 10 days, we saw 10,000
galaxies. And these are truly galaxies a long time ago far, far away.
>>INTERVIEWER: Now, has Hubble ever seen a Death Star?
>>DEBORAH: Hubble has seen a lot of death stars. And by "death star" what I mean is a
dieing star that undergoes a tremendous explosion or
eruption and spreads material throughout the interstellar medium.
We see stars that are making big shells of dust
that is going out, we see supernovae that can be as bright as an entire
galaxy, and as that material goes out and mixes in with
the nebula that are already there, it brings in material that is necessary
for the formation of life. >>INTERVIEWER: Has Hubble shown us any interesting
worlds? >>DEBORAH: Hubble has shown us amazing details of
the fascinating worlds of our Solar System. Like Star
Wars has desert planets and jungle planets, we have a desert planet,
Mars, that's very interesting to us. We have our own Jupiter
a giant planet, we see this beautiful 4k movie
of Jupiter that was taken by Hubble. And Jupiter has a moon
just like the fourth moon of Yavin, that is itself possibly a habitable world.
at least for microbes. That would be Europa,
>>INTERVIEWER: So like Star Wars, Hubble is a classic and has been showing us
amazing images. What does the future hold for Hubble?
>>DEBORAH: Well, due to five servicing missions by astronauts, all the
equipment on Hubble has been updated and renewed, and it's
in its best shape ever, it's doing amazing work every year,
scientists around the world compete to come up with new ideas
for how to use Hubble. And in a few years in 2018, Hubble will be
joined by its sister ship, the James Webb telescope, that will
look further into the infrared, and together, they have a very bright future.
[silence]
>>INTERVIEWER: Where can we see more of Hubble's amazing images?
>>DEBORAH: Okay, well if you go online to
nasa.gov/hubble, or on Twitter @NASA_Hubble,
you will see the Hubble images, the archive
of the last quarter century worth of thousands and thousands of
images and videos of things all over the universe.
You could spend weeks. I certainly do. >>INTERVIEWER: Thanks
so much for joining us! >>DEBORAH: And may the force be with you. >>INTERVIEWER: May
the force be with you.