[cheering] [intense music]
The madness of March has begun! Who will rise through the ranks
and come out victorious? I’m referring of course to the
exciting, nail-biting challenge of amateur astronomy.
Sky-watching enthusiasts across the northern hemisphere are
prepping their telescopes for this year’s Messier marathon,
where they try to find as many of the 110 Messier objects as
they can in just one night. To celebrate, NASA’s Hubble Space
Telescope is releasing 12 new images of Messier objects.
Charles Messier was a French astronomer in the 1700s and
early 1800s. He was interested in discovering comets, but it
took time to determine which fuzzy features in the sky were
new, moving objects and which were permanent and stationary.
So, Messier compiled a list of the permanent features to make
it easier to identify the new comets. This list, now known as
the Messier catalog, includes star clusters, nebulas, and
galaxies, and it’s popular with amateur astronomers because
they’re all relatively bright and findable with a backyard
telescope. There are a few weeks from mid-March to early April
when it’s possible for people in the northern hemisphere to
observe all 110 Messier objects in one night. This is best done
close to the time of a new moon, which in 2018 is March 17th.
Many astronomy clubs across the globe organize Messier marathons
around this time, and only people with the most skill,
endurance, will power, good luck, and darkest skies manage
to find all 110 objects before the sun rises. The Hubble Space
Telescope has plenty of skill and the darkest sky possible,
but it doesn’t have the agility to point toward 110 objects in
different parts of the sky within 12 hours. Over the years
though, Hubble has provided fantastic zoomed-in images of
most of the Messier catalog. These 12 new images were
recently processed from existing Hubble data and compiled into
Hubble’s gallery of Messier objects to share the excitement
of stargazing, and let amateur astronomers compare their views
to those of Hubble. The 12 new images include six spiral
galaxies, four elliptical galaxies, and two globular
clusters. M58 was one of the first galaxies recognized to
have a spiral shape, and is the most distant Messier object. M90
is one of the few galaxies to be moving toward our own Milky Way
galaxy rather than away. Though Messier himself may have been
disappointed that these objects weren’t comets, each of them has
a unique story to tell. Whether you use a space observatory like
Hubble, a small telescope on the ground, binoculars, or just your
own eyes, there are always interesting things to look at in
the night sky.
www.nasa.gov/hubble @NASAHubble