[slate] The Hubble Space Telescope has given us
an amazing new image of deep space. So when you look at
the image you're seeing hundreds, possibly thousands of galaxies
and each of these galaxies can contain billions of stars and perhaps
their planetary systems. So it's quite mind blowing what we're seeing here.
[slate] We're calling this a frontier
field because it's helping us push the frontiers of what we understand
in astrophysics about the universe. This is an image
of a cluster of galaxies. There's so much mass in this cluster
from the galaxies and from the dark matter that we don't actually see
that it can actually distort space itself. This is a phenomenon
that Albert Einstein predicted. And in this case light traveling
through this distorted space will itself get distorted
and magnified. What that means is in this image we can actually see
distant galaxies behind the foreground cluster of galaxies
and the light from those distant galaxies is getting warped. You can see
kind of funny looking arcs in this image. And also magnified
It's helping us understand the dark matter in this foreground cluster
that you can't see itself. But it's also helping us to understand these
very distant galaxies that are being magnified by this effect.
It's so far in space and time that we wouldn't be able to see them well without
gravitational lensing. [slate]
Well the Hubble Space Telescope
is helping us understand the universe very distant
and the universe very close. So it's helping us understand these very
distant galaxies such as the frontier fields are showing us, but it's
also helping us understand in our own galaxy these nurseries
where stars and planetary systems are formed. We're looking at these
nebulae that are signposts of recent star formation.
We're studying regions around stars where planets are forming. We're even
analyzing the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system.
We just recently released a new
analysis of the atmosphere of two of these exoplanets from Earth-
sized planets that are in a system only 39 light years away. That's
very close by in cosmic terms. [slate]
Oh Hubble has seen so many fantastic
phenomenon and objects in space, it's hard to know where to begin. But
the most interesting features we've seen are with galaxies.
We've seen that galaxies can actually merge together and
create tidal forces that spur new star formation in those galaxies
We've actually learned that the cores of galaxies
can contain supermassive black holes. These beasts
are pulling in a lot of matter, but they also can foster
the expelling of these high velocity jets that can move
almost as fast as the speed of light. We're also
finding phenomena that span the whole range of the universe
We've found with Hubble and with ground-based telescopes working together
that the universe is not only expanding but that expansion
is actually getting faster. It's accelerating, pushed apart by something
we're calling dark energy as we study more and try to understand what that actually
is. These unexpected discoveries with Hubble keep us
freshly excited about what's yet to discover in the universe
and so Hubble is continuing in a very healthy and active mode to
discover new things in the universe that we never expected before.
[slate]
Star Trek and other similar science fiction
TV shows and films I think inspired me to be curious
about the universe. I wanted to explore myself
and go see those strange new worlds. I wanted to learn about
moons around other planets, I wanted
to learn about other star systems. So I think
Star Trek inspires curiosity and wonder and a sense of aw
in the universe. And science is a wonderful tool for exploring
the wonders of nature. So I think that's why ultimately became a scientist.
An astronomer, because of that curiosity
that was fertilized by Star Trek and other very interesting science fiction
And science fact that I learned about from a young age.
[slate]
Well these deep fields of space like the frontier field
are phenomenal because they show us that galaxies fill the universe.
So in fact if we pointed the telescope in any direction
and collected light for quite a long time we'd see another collection of galaxies
just like this. Now the frontier fields are unique because
we have pointed them specifically at regions where there are clusters of
galaxies. So there's quite a few galaxies that are held near each other by their
mutual gravity. We did that on purpose because we wanted to study those
clusters and we wanted to study this phenomenon called gravitational lensing.
Where all the mass in this cluster including
the dark matter we can't actually see, will distort space
and will actually magnify light from even more distant galaxies.
[slate]
Well the Hubble telescope has a wonderful gallery of
images that's free and available to everyone on our website, which is
nasa.gov/hubble. You can also find us on Twitter
@NASA_Hubble. And you'll see
on these sites and on Twitter that we have a new campaign called "Spot Hubble."
This is a campaign to help all of us spot images of
Hubble or images from the Hubble telescope in culture all around us.
The Hubble Space Telescope has inspired people all around the world through these iconic
images and we see them everywhere around us so here's a place we can gather
these iconic images and enjoy what the Hubble Space Telescope is providing
for us in terms of exploring the universe.