Hubble Zooms in on a Space Oddity

[n2doc]

A strange, glowing green cloud of gas that has mystified astronomers since its discovery in 2007 has been studied by Hubble. The cloud of gas is lit up by the bright light of a nearby quasar, and shows signs of ongoing star formation.

One of the strangest space objects ever seen is being scrutinised by the penetrating vision of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. A mysterious, glowing green blob of gas is floating in space near a spiral galaxy. Hubble uncovered delicate filaments of gas and a pocket of young star clusters in the giant object, which is the size of the Milky Way.

The Hubble revelations are the latest finds in an ongoing probe of Hanny’s Voorwerp (Hanny’s Object in Dutch). It is named after Hanny van Arkel, the Dutch schoolteacher who discovered the ghostly structure in 2007 while participating in the online Galaxy Zoo project. Galaxy Zoo enlists the public to help classify more than a million galaxies catalogued in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The project has expanded to include Galaxy Zoo: Hubble, in which the public is asked to assess tens of thousands of galaxies in deep imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope.

In the sharpest view yet of Hanny’s Voorwerp, Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys have uncovered star birth in a region of the green object that faces the spiral galaxy IC 2497, located about 650 million light-years from Earth. Radio observations have shown an outflow of gas arising from the galaxy’s core. The new Hubble images reveal that the galaxy’s gas is interacting with a small region of Hanny’s Voorwerp, which is collapsing and forming stars. The youngest stars are a couple of million years old.

more with bigger versions

http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1102/

[Lucinda]

1. TY!

Interesting read. :)

[Sinistrous]

2. Is that large, black circle (lower left)

an artifact or the mother of all black holes, or neither?

[Peace Patriot]

4. In the Galaxy Zoo Milky Way project, we've learned to identify black patches like that as

"dark nebulae." The Milky Way is FILLED with green dust clouds and green filaments, often forming into what are called "Green Knots"--very bright, intricate objects of blazing yellow light intertwined with snaky green filaments often associated, also, with what are called "Fuzzy Red Objects"--patches of bright red that are sometimes very bright "clouds," other times more defined "bubbles" sometimes right within the "Green Knot." These are star-making regions and they are often streaked with very dark black areas, where no background starlight is coming through. They look like inkspots. I don't think I've seen one, in the Milky Way work I've done, quite so large and defined as this--the big round very black space in this gigantic "Green Knot." Usually they look more like lightning streaks (of velvet black) or small defined black spots, and they are associated with areas where the prevalent dust is forming into Green Filaments, Green Knots or the "bubbles" of dust that precede these formations.

I don't think it's a "black hole."

The spiral galaxy associated with this Hanny’s Voorwerp is rather an unusual spiral, with very odd, flimsy, gray, gaseous arms and a huge, tumultuous core. I've participated in another Galaxy Zoo project, classifying objects as spirals, ellipticals, etc., in Sloan and Hubble photos, and I would classify this galaxy as an "irregular" spiral. I've never seen anything like it. Usually a spiral galaxy's arms are bright and full of stars, maybe with defined streaks of dust or gas, but nothing like this. This one is also disorderly and there are no defined arms. In fact, I'm not sure I would classify it as a spiral. I don't what the hell it is.

I'm proud to say that this amazing object--Hanny’s Voorwerp--was discovered by an ordinary citizen like me, in the project that I worked on quite a lot--the first Sloan photo classifications. That is the thrill of the Galazy Zoo projects--anybody can participate, the tasks you do are easy and fun and you MIGHT discover something like THIS--and become famous in the astronomy world without having ever taken even a beginner's class in astronomy. So many people are participating that you can't make mistakes. If you goof on a classification, there are 50 or 100 other people who will correct your misclassification and the majority rules. In some cases, yours may be the FIRST human eyes to see one of the objects.

There are SO MANY new photos of the objects in the universe that astronomers can't get to them all, and computer programs apparently are not as good as any pair of human eyes at picking out shapes and making the judgments about shapes that we do in these projects. A little boost to the human ego--even for people with no science background.

But most of all you get to LOOK at these STAGGERINGLY BEAUTIFUL--often mysterious and amazing--galaxies and other objects that fill the universe. It is truly awe-inspiring.

[Sinistrous]

7. Thank you for your detailed and understandable analysis.

[Peace Patriot]

8. But it looks like I was completely wrong. It IS a black hole!

Or, there is an unseen black hole present. I still don't know if the big visible round black space in the object is the black hole but this Wired news report says there IS a black hole in this object and the object is very old. See

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x171797

[TheMadMonk]

9. dat black hole is at the centre of the associated galaxy...

...just millenia ago it was powering a quasar which illuminated Hanny's Voorweep so nicely for us.

The black "hole" in the lower left is a dark forground object.

[formercia]

3. It's a Romulan warship uncloaking.

a big one at that....

[pokerfan]

5. either very big

or very close.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. GMTA! nt