Announcements

9 September 2015: On 24 April 2015 ESA/Hubble announced the winners of its Ode to Hubble short video competition as part of the Hubble 25th anniversary celebrations. At that time we extended our thanks to the many individuals who entered the competition, but they did not receive official recognition. Many of these videos were highly creative, original and informed and deserve to be seen by a wider audience. So now, we are giving everyone the chance to appreciate the high quality of work from all our entrants by hosting all of the videos entered on a new page on the ESA/Hubble website. We invite you to visit this new webpage and explore the videos, which all played a part in highlighting Hubble’s role not just as a scientific instrument but as a cultural icon that inspires creativity and curiosity about the Universe. The winning videos, as well as the runners up, can also …

26 August 2015: The newest Hubblecast focuses on planetary nebulae and, in particular, the spectacular Twin Jet Nebula. Observed and studied by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, many fascinating features have been found within its butterfly-shaped wings. You can subscribe to the Hubblecasts in iTunes, receive future episodes on YouTube or follow us on Vimeo. Many other Hubblecast episodes are also available. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles for the Hubblecast in multiple languages, or translate this video on dotSUB. Credits: Directed by: Mathias Jäger Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Mathias Jäger, Nicky Jenner, Georgia Bladon Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA/Hubble Videos: NASA, ESA/Hubble, NASA Goodard Space Flight Center Animations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis Calcada, NASA, ESA/Hubble Music: Stan Dart (www.stan-dart.com) Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

6 July 2015: The July 2015 issue of the ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter is now available. Among other things, this issue reflects upon Hubble’s 25th anniversary celebrations. Two month on we look back at what we can learn from the wide-spread activities involving the public and give a retrospective of the Hubble 2020 conference and the science presented therein. Also included are highlights from the cycle 23 Time Allocation Committee and the great success of European Principal Investigators and Co-Investigators in this round. The ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter promotes technical and operational news for the Hubble Space Telescope to European users and the scientific community. It is also intended to create a communication channel between the European Hubble user community, and the staff scientists at ESA who support Hubble science operations. You can subscribe to the ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter here, or get in touch at [email protected]. If you are a media representative we recommend subscribing …

30 June 2015: The 17th issue of Communicating Astronomy with the Public journal is out now! In this issue you will find articles discussing outreach activities for the Google Lunar XPRIZE race to the Moon; the issues involved in communicating astronomy directly to a mass audience through television; the role of space art in astronomy outreach; and how using simple optical instruments to reproduce historical astronomical observations can help amateur astronomers and the wider public engage with astronomy in a direct, collaborative way. There is all this, and more, in this free, peer-reviewed journal for astronomy communicators — now available for download.

5 June 2015: To celebrate Hubble's 25th birthday ESA/Hubble asked the public to produce and submit short videos illustrating how Hubble has inspired them. This new Hubblecast episode presents the two winning videos. The episode also introduces us to the creators of the videos and they explain how they produced the videos and the inspiration for creating them. You can subscribe to the Hubblecasts in iTunes, receive future episodes on YouTube or follow us on Vimeo. Many other Hubblecast episodes are also available. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles for the Hubblecast in multiple languages, or translate this video on dotSUB. Credit: Directed by: Mathias Jäger Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Georgia Bladon Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: ESA/Hubble, ESO, NASA and ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Videos: ESA/Hubble, Halley Davies and Martin Hellmich, Desiré de Palacio Animations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis Calcada, NASA, ESA/Hubble Music: La …

24 April 2015: Today marks the 25th anniversary of Hubble’s launch and it is with great pleasure that we also celebrate your, the public's, contribution to this mission by announcing the winners of the Ode to Hubble competition today! Congratulations to Desiré de Palacio from Spain in the over 25s category for her stunning video Bariónica which, using photography, explores how Hubble has inspired her; combining images of the Universe with those of our own planet and the human form. In the 25 and under category our congratulations go to Halley Davies and Martin Hellmich from Canada whose animated video Hubble’s Universe takes us on a journey through history and shows what Hubble has taught us about the Universe. These winners will receive a real section of Hubble’s solar array mounted in perspex. These little pieces of Hubble are part of the huge solar arrays that spent 3 years orbiting the Earth, giving …

23 April 2015: After a quarter of a century in space, Hubble has captured a dramatic new cosmic landscape to take centre stage as the 25th anniversary image. This Hubblecast browses the history of Hubble’s anniversary images and explores the newest addition: the star cluster Westerlund 2. This year, museums, science centres, planetariums and other science institutes across Europe have unveiled images and taken part in other events celebrating the 25th anniversary. You can subscribe to the Hubblecasts in iTunes, receive future episodes on YouTube or follow us on Vimeo. Many other Hubblecast episodes are also available. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles for the Hubblecast in multiple languages, or translate this video on dotSUB. Credit: Directed by: Georgia Bladon Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Georgia Bladon and Nicky Guttridge Narration: Dr Joe Liske Images: NASA, ESA/Hubble, the Hubble Heritage Team, A. Nota (ESA/STScI), the Westerlund 2 Science …

17 April 2015: Following weeks of development, Hubble has a new design for its website and a wealth of new resources available for the 25th anniversary celebrations. There are extra resources available to help press and public alike in their celebration of the anniversary. This includes a detailed press pack full of information about Hubble, including information on the history of Hubble, Hubble’s greatest discoveries, a short fact sheet and a biography of Edwin P. Hubble. This is available in both English and Spanish. Also on the resources page are two sets of slides on Hubble, its history and its future which can be used for talks and presentations. New fulldome clips are also appearing every month for use by planetariums worldwide. The main motivation for the changes to the website's design was to give the site a more user-friendly interface and to make it more responsive on mobile platforms. The new design …

9 April 2015: Many thanks to everyone who entered the Ode to Hubble competition. We were absolutely taken aback by the work and creativity that was put into the entries. The public voting has now come to an end and we can now reveal the shortlist of six videos in each of the two categories! Congratulations to Simon Vandevelde, Halley Davies, Hui Tung Liu, Jacinto Manuel Escaray, Krishna Santos and Alexandra Greenbaum in the under 25s category! And to Laura Austin, Andres Eloy Martinez Rojas, Desiré de Palacio, Philip Stark, the joint efforts of Mattia Di Miscia and Paola Paladini, and the team comprising Vicent J. Martínez, Javier Diez, Alberto Fernández-Soto, Fernando Ballesteros, Amelia Ortiz-Gil in the over 25s category! To watch the shortlisted entries visit the Ode to Hubble webpage. The shortlist will be considered by our judging panel and the two final winners will be announced on the 24 April 2015. …

1 April 2015: In January this year ESA/Hubble made a call for proposals to informal education venues across Europe to apply for a large-scale print of the Hubble 25th anniversary image. We have now combed through the applications and selected over sixty venues whose proposals for an unveiling event and supporting activities were of the highest standards. The events will, by and large, take place on 23 April 2015 from 15:00 onwards, which is when Hubble’s 25th anniversary image will be published. If you are a media representative and would like to find out more about the events taking place near you and when they will take place you can find a full list on our website. The countries where unveilings will take place are: Austria Belgium Bulgaria Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Lithuania Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Slovakia Turkey …

26 March 2015: ESA/Hubble offers almost 4000 image and over 1000 videos for the use of the media, researchers and the public. All of ESA/Hubble’s images and videos are provided free of charge, and most of our internet traffic results from the distribution of videos — everything from video podcasts to large ultra HD and planetarium fulldome videos. Some of the bigger files are a few gigabytes in size, and can be hundreds of gigabytes for fulldome planetarium clips. Up to now ESA/Hubble has only had one server location — at the European Southern Observatory’s Headquarters in Germany — from where it distributed all content across the globe. However, with a large amount of ESA/Hubble’s public traffic originating from outside Europe, the disadvantage in terms of speed and the ease with which these users could access ESA/Hubble content has been a concern for more than a decade. The delivery of huge files across …

19 March 2015: As Hubble enters its 25th year in orbit, with celebrations planned around the world for its anniversary on 24 April 2015, this Hubblecast celebrates the relationship that the telescope will have with its future colleague, the James Webb Space Telescope. You can subscribe to the Hubblecasts in iTunes, receive future episodes on YouTube or follow us on Vimeo. Many other Hubblecast episodes are also available. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles for the Hubblecast in multiple languages, or translate this video on dotSUB. Credit: Directed by: Georgia Bladon Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Georgia Bladon and Nicky Guttridge Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA/Hubble and the Hubble Heritage Team, J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University), ESO, Digitized Sky Survey 2, M. McCaughrean & M. Andersen (AIP) Videos: NASA, ESA/Hubble Animations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis Calcada, NASA, ESA/Hubble Music: Johan B. Monell (www.johanmonell.com) …

13 March 2015: The short video competition in celebration of Hubble’s 25th year in orbit has come to an end. Many thanks to all those who sent in their videos. Now, everyone has the chance to help us select a shortlist. So, take some time to watch a few videos — all of which are under three minutes long — and see how people have been inspired by Hubble. You can view and vote for the entries that you think deserve to win by visiting the competition voting pages. Visit one or both of the competition categories — 25 and under and over 25s — and have your say on the videos that will help us celebrate 25 years of Hubble. You will need a Facebook account to vote and to be signed into Facebook on your computer at the time of voting. You vote for the entries you like by “liking them” …

24 February 2015: ESA/Hubble is releasing a series of stunning fulldome clips, freely available to planetariums across the globe as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations. The clips are in 4k and 8k fulldome format and rendered for uni-directional domes. Today the first four clips have been released and can be downloaded from the website. Another clip will be released on the 24th of each month until the end of the year, so don’t forget to keep checking. The clips released today are: A zoom into Hubble’s iconic view of RS Puppis. An artist’s impression of Hubble rising over the Earth. An exploration of the huge galaxy cluster Abell 2218. A pan of the famous Carina Nebula, or “Mystic Mountain”. If you don't want to miss any of our fulldome videos, we recommend that you subscribe to our fulldome RSS feeds: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/feed/category/fulldome/ http://www.eso.org/public/videos/feed/category/fulldome/

6 February 2015: The ESA Hubble Space Telescope Twitter account recently welcomed its 100 000th follower. Our Twitter feed brings Hubble Space Telescope fans the latest news from ESA, as NASA’s partner in this international project. A huge thanks to all our followers for their continued curiosity and support, which helps us to reach more people than ever before. Each of ESA/Hubble’s followers is an ambassador, spreading awareness of the wonders of the Universe and all the work Hubble and its team are doing to further our understanding of it. We are all very grateful for your ongoing support. Thank you for being Hubble’s friends and we hope to see many more of you joining our community!

2 February 2015: What does Hubble mean to you? For society? How has it inspired you? The ESA/Hubble Ode to Hubble competition lets anyone inspired by Hubble express their feelings or share their ideas in a creative and innovative way. It is your chance to join us in celebrating the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 25th anniversary! As long as it can be uploaded as a YouTube, Vine and Instagram video less than three minutes long you can submit anything. Pan over a drawing, scroll over a poem or text, film your own Hubblecast, film yourself performing or talking about a Hubble topic, create an animation or compose a piece of music and upload it as a video piece. Just make it innovative, creative and, most of all, inspired by Hubble, or one of its great discoveries or images. There are two categories for the competition, one for under 25s — born in Hubble’s …

27 January 2015: The January 2015 issue of the ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter is now available. It comes only a few short weeks after the last edition to bring to attention two Calls for Proposals. Both offer exciting opportunities for scientists to be a part of the Hubble mission through to the 2020s and we at ESA/Hubble look forward to seeing how the scientific community will contribute to Hubble’s remaining years and the legacy it leaves behind. The ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter promotes technical and operational news for the Hubble Space Telescope to European users and the scientific community. It is also intended to create a communication channel between the European Hubble user community, and the staff scientists at ESA who support Hubble science operations. You can subscribe to the ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter here, or get in touch at [email protected]. If you are a media representative we recommend subscribing to the ESA/Hubble Media Newsletter, a weekly embargoed newsletter sent …

26 January 2015: To celebrate the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 25 years in orbit, ESA/Hubble is offering free large-format high-quality prints of Hubble’s stunning anniversary image. The anniversary image is expected to be revealed to the public on the 23 April 2015 (soon to be confirmed) and we would like to see informal learning centres across Europe organising their own events to celebrate Hubble’s 25th birthday using the image as a centrepiece. We invite all European-based science centres, museums, planetariums, nature centres and other informal education venues to apply to receive one of these roughly 3 metre by 3 metre prints. Selected institutions will not only receive the Hubble anniversary image free of charge, but also press and VIP material for the unveiling event, and promotion of their event on the spacetelescope.org website and via social media. To apply you must arrange an event for the anniversary and submit a proposal telling us about …

15 January 2015: On 24 April 2015 the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope will celebrate 25 years since its launch and new web pages on the ESA/Hubble website let you know how you can get involved. During the 1970s, NASA and ESA began planning for a space telescope that could transcend the blurring effects of the atmosphere and take clearer images of the Universe than ever before. In 1990 the idea finally became a reality. For almost 25 years Hubble has delved deeper into the early years of the Universe than was ever thought possible, played a critical part in the discovery that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating and probed the atmospheres of planets around distant stars. To commemorate this quarter century of success in engineering and science and as a cultural icon, ESA/Hubble will run a series of projects to involve the public, planetariums and informal learning centres in the celebrations. …

5 January 2015: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has revisited one of its most iconic and popular images: the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation. This time Hubble has not just one image for us, but two: as well as the new visible-light image the telescope used infrared light to produce a second breathtaking picture of the region. Between them these images show the pillars in more detail than ever before. In this Hubblecast we explore the different ways in which Hubble, and other telescopes, have captured this iconic object. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles for the Hubblecast in multiple languages, or translate this video on dotSUB. Credit: Directed by: Georgia Bladon Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Georgia Bladon and Nicky Guttridge Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA/Hubble and the Hubble Heritage Team, J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University), ESO, Digitized Sky Survey 2, …

10 December 2014: Hubble has achieved an extraordinary amount in its lifetime and 2015 will mark 25 years since its launch. The year 2015 will be filled with Hubble-related activities for you to enjoy and, most importantly, get involved with. In this Hubblecast we look back at some of the ways in which you have shown your appreciation for Hubble in the past and let you in on what the Hubble 25 celebrations have to offer. Now is the time to show once more what Hubble means to you. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles for the Hubblecast in multiple languages, or translate this video on dotSUB. More information on the 25th anniversary can be found on the dedicated web pages.

4 December 2014: The 16th issue of Communicating Astronomy with the Public journal is out now!  In this issue you will find articles discussing the value of science communication training for scientists, the best practices when looking for crowdfunding, the process of capturing the night sky in Ultra HD and the logic, or lack thereof, behind stripping astronomy engagement of its maths. Plus, a column article describes the process behind writing a book that explains the physics of the Universe using only the most common thousand words in the English language. There is all this, and more, in this free, peer-reviewed journal for astronomy communicators — now available for download.

3 December 2014: The December 2014 issue of the ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter is now available. It outlines the plans that have been put in place to celebrate Hubble’s 25th anniversary in 2015, thanks the individuals who work with Hubble for helping us celebrate 1 million friends on Facebook and gives more information on the content of the Hubble 2020 symposium, to be held in April 2015, and what inspired it. The ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter promotes technical and operational news for the Hubble Space Telescope to European users and the scientific community. Released quarterly, this newsletter contains information about the scientific activities taking place with Hubble, calls for proposals, news on observing and programmatic developments, upcoming conferences, and other updates. This newsletter augments the information presented in public scientific press releases and announcements. It is also intended to create a communication channel between the European Hubble user community, and the staff scientists at ESA …

20 November 2014: New observations of four globular clusters in the Fornax dwarf galaxy have called into question one of the leading theories about how these clusters form. In this episode we explain the mystery behind these objects and how it is deepened by these new findings. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles for the Hubblecast in multiple languages, or translate this video on dotSUB. Credit: Directed by: Georgia Bladon Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Georgia Bladon and Nicky Guttridge Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA/Hubble Videos: NASA, ESA/Hubble Animations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis Calcada, NASA, ESA/Hubble Music: Jennifer Athena Galatis Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

13 November 2014: This summer we asked the public to send us their Hubble- and astronomy-related questions, and the response was incredible! In this episode Dr J answers a selection of the questions that were about science related to Hubble. These questions range from what Hubble has achieved within the Solar System, to the science it has uncovered at the very edge of the observable Universe. In this episode Dr J explains some of the key concepts, and biggest misconceptions, about the Universe we live in. Credit: Directed by: Georgia Bladon Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Georgia Bladon and Victoria Weller Von Ahlefeld Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA/Hubble Videos: NASA, ESA/Hubble Animations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis Calcada, Lorenzo Benassi, NASA, ESA/Hubble Visible Universe animation: http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/ Music: Johan B. Monell, movetwo, Hemeleen Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

7 November 2014: "Thank you, Hubble friend! You're one in a million!" is the message that the people behind the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have sent to the one million friends of the ESA/Hubble Facebook page. Scientists, engineers, management staff, IT, web, graphics or communication specialists and others who have worked for Hubble wanted to thank the friends of Hubble who remind them of the meaning behind their daily efforts. In the first stage of the initiative, Hubble staff took selfies or group photos to show Facebook friends the people working behind the scenes for the world’s most loved space telescope. This resulted in a Facebook album where friends can meet our staff. The second stage invites members of the general public to get creative and write the message "I'm a Hubble friend! I'm one in a million", along with their surname and their occupation or a hobby that defines them, in an …

27 October 2014: Your Hubble Pictures, a new ESA/Hubble Flickr page, has been launched. It exists to host the drawings, paintings, processed astronomical images, models, photographs, cartoons and any other content inspired by Hubble and made by you.This new platform will bring together ESA/Hubble fans and combine the new content that would previously have been submitted to our Space Art, and Kid’s Drawings pages with a range of other creative pieces. When uploading your artworks, photography, or space images to the Flickr page please include your name, your country, your city or town, the title and description of your piece and tags to make your image searchable. We look forward to seeing the work you come up with! 

22 October 2014: Last month we asked the public to send us their Hubble- and astronomy-related questions, and the response was incredible! In this episode Dr J answers a selection of the questions that were specifically about Hubble itself. These range from where Hubble is and how it avoids crashing into space debris, to what the future holds for Hubble, how its life will end, and what will take its place. Watch out for the next episode in which the more science-related questions will get their turn. Credit: Directed by: Georgia Bladon Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Georgia Bladon and Victoria Weller Von Ahlefeld Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA/Hubble Videos: NASA, ESA/Hubble Animations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis Calcada, NASA, ESA/Hubble, TU-Braunschweig Music: Johan B. Monell, movetwo, Hemeleen Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

18 September 2014: Above the Earth's atmosphere, along Hubble's path, is a mysterious region known as the South Atlantic Anomaly. When satellites pass through this area they are bombarded with swarms of intensely high energy particles. This can produce "glitches" in astronomical data, malfunctioning of on-board electronics, and has even shut down unprepared spacecraft for weeks! This Hubblecast tells the story of what happens to Hubble in this hazardous region. Directed by: Georgia Bladon Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Georgia Bladon Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA Videos: NASA, ESA Music: Johan B. Monell Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

28 July 2014: The 15th issue of Communicating Astronomy with the Public journal is out now! In this issue you will find articles that outline best practice for astronomy outreach with the visually impaired, with the elderly, with children and with audiences from around the world — from rural Mexico to downtown Tokyo, Japan. Amongst the research articles there are resources on designing your own spectroscopy lab, building a do-it-yourself portable planetarium programme and using new analogies to bring the Universe down to a scale that can be better understood. There is all this, and more, in this free, peer-reviewed journal for astronomy communicators — now available for download.

10 July 2014: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a merger between two elliptical galaxies in the cluster known as SDSS J1531+3414. Finding two ellipticals merging is rare, but it is even rarer to find a merger between elliptical galaxies that is so rich in gas that it can induce star formation. This Hubblecast explores this rare event and the unusual “beads on a string” type of star formation that has occurred. Directed by: Georgia Bladon Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Nicky Guttridge and Georgia Bladon Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA Videos: NASA, ESA Dripping water video (04:33): Dirk Essl Galaxy formation animation (04:44): Klaus Dolag (MPA, Garching) Music: Steve Buick Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

19 June 2014: This new Hubblecast episode looks at starburst dwarf galaxies in a time when most of the stars in the Universe were formed. New NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations show that dwarf galaxies played a bigger role than expected in the early history of the Universe. This episode looks at the dwarf galaxies that form stars in sudden bursts, explores just how rampantly they are creating new stars and unravels when, where and how the stars in our Universe formed. Credit: ESA/Hubble Directed by: Georgia Bladon Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Georgia Bladon Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA Videos: NASA, ESA Animation: Martin Kornmesser & Luis Calcada Galaxy Collision (6:39): Patrik Jonsson, Greg Novak & Joel Primack (UC Santa Cruz, USA) Music: Johan B. Monell (www.johanmonell.com) Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

22 May 2014: This episode of the Hubblecast explores the intersection of science and art through the artwork of Tim Otto Roth — premiered in March 2014 at the fourth Hubble Space Telescope Conference at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. Heaven’s Carousel is a huge carousel like sound installation with 36 rotating illuminated loudspeakers. It was inspired by Hubble research, in particular the expanding Universe. Credit: ESA/Hubble Directed by: Georgia Bladon Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Georgia Bladon & Nikita Marwaha Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA Doppler Effect Diagram: Tkarcher, improved by Tatoute Images of Edwin Hubble: Courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology Heaven’s Carousel with crowd: Gabriel Brammer Videos: NASA, ESA Interview footage and installation footage: M. Estacion (STScI). Installation footage: Tim Otto Roth Timelapse videos: Martin Kornmesser and Christoph Malin Music: Toomas Erm Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi …

17 March 2014: In April of this year, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope will be celebrating 24 years of observing. To celebrate this milestone, the observatory is releasing a brand new image of part of NGC 2174, otherwise known as the Monkey Head Nebula. This new Hubblecast episode showcases this beautiful image, which views a colourful region filled with young stars embedded among bright wisps of cosmic gas and dust. This image is to be unveiled at the Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV conference, held at the prestigious Accademia dei Lincei in Rome from 17–20 March 2014. Credit: ESA/Hubble Directed by: Georgia Bladon Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Nicola Guttridge/Georgia Bladon & Nikita Marwaha Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA New image of NGC 2174: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Videos: Zoom video: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI) Music: Steve Buick Web …

13 March 2014: From 17–20 March 2014, the renowned Accademia dei Lincei in Rome will host the Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV conference. Subtitled "Looking to the Future", the conference will kick off the celebrations for the 25th year of operation for Hubble, and will highlight and celebrate the scientific breakthroughs and spectacular images that Hubble has made over the last two decades. It will also look into the future at the topics that will shape the field of astrophysics in the next decade — as well as pushing forward with discussions about Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope. The scientific content of the conference will be complemented by art, with the inauguration of a new astronomy-inspired art installation that will link together the fields of art, music and astronomy, named Heaven's Carousel. Conceptualised and designed by German artist and composer Tim Otto Roth [1], the work is inspired by …

4 March 2014: The newest episode of the Hubblecast showcases striking new observations of a spiral galaxy moving through the heart of a galaxy cluster named Abell 3627. This cluster is violently ripping the spiral’s entrails out into space, leaving bright blue streaks as telltale clues to this cosmic crime. Credit: ESA/Hubble Directed by: Nicola Guttridge Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Nicola Guttridge/Georgia Bladon & Nikita Marwaha Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J) Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA New image of ESO 137-001: NASA, ESA; acknowledgements: Ming Sun (UAH), and Serge Meunier Hubble-Chandra composite image: NASA, ESA, CXC Stephan’s Quintet: NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team I Zwicky 18: NASA, ESA, and A. Aloisi (European Space Agency and Space Telescope Science Institute) Messier 106: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and R. Gendler (for the Hubble Heritage Team). Acknowledgement: J. GaBany The “Comet galaxy”: …

7 February 2014: From 17–20 March 2014 the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy, will host the fourth Hubble Space Telescope conference: "Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV — Looking to the Future". This conference will kick off the 25th anniversary of Hubble’s launch in 2015, celebrating the tremendous impact the telescope has had on science and society. "Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV" aims to highlight the almost quarter century of ground-breaking science and spectacular images that have come from the telescope, as well as pushing forward with discussions about Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope. The conference will also explore the key questions that will shape the field of astrophysics in the coming decades. The full and final conference programme is available here. It includes a wide variety of scientific talks and social events. Bona fide media representatives are invited to attend the conference, and may apply to …

24 January 2014: The January 2014 issue of the ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter is now available, bringing information on the European Hubble Space Telescope Archive at ESA's Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), a new sound and art installation, named the Heaven's Carousel, which will be inaugurated at the Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV conference in March 2014, and a general update on the planning of this conference. The ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter promotes technical and operational news about the Hubble Space Telescope to European users and the scientific community. Released quarterly, this newsletter contains information about the scientific activities taking place with Hubble, calls for proposals, news on observing and programmatic developments, upcoming conferences, and other updates. This newsletter augments the information presented in public scientific press releases and announcements. It is also intended to create a communication channel between the European Hubble user community, and the staff scientists at ESA who support Hubble …

7 January 2014: Three-dimensional (3D) printers are transforming the business, medical, and consumer landscape by creating a vast variety of objects, including aeroplane parts, lamps, jewellery, and even artificial human bones. Now astronomers Carol Christian (STScI, Baltimore) and Antonella Nota (ESA and STScI, Baltimore) [1] are experimenting with the technology to transform astronomy education, turning images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope into tactile 3D pictures for people who cannot explore celestial wonders visually. Nota and Christian present their 3D representations at a press conference today, 7 January 2014, at the American Astronomical meeting in Washington, DC, USA. The project started when Christian was granted a Hubble education and public outreach grant, which allowed the purchase of a 3D printer in order to experiment with the technology to make Hubble tactile images. They started with a Hubble image of the bright star cluster NGC 602, located in our neighbouring galaxy the Small Magellanic …

17 December 2013: This episode of the Hubblecast explores striking new Hubble observations of a variable star known as RS Puppis. This star is growing brighter and dimmer as it pulsates over a period of five weeks. These pulsations have created a stunning example of a phenomenon known as a light echo, where light appears to reverberate through the foggy environment around the star. Credit: ESA/Hubble Directed by: Nicola GuttridgeVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWritten by: Nicola Guttridge & Georgia BladonPresented by: Joe Liske (Dr J)Narration: Sara Mendes da CostaImages: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-Hubble/Europe CollaborationAcknowledgment: H. Bond (STScI and Penn State University)View of Milky Way: Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org).Videos: ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser, L. Calçada), G. Bacon (STScI)Music: Zero ProjectWeb and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi ShidaCinematography: Peter Rixner (perix-media-gmbh.de)Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

6 December 2013: Last month saw the inauguration of a new Hubble observing program: Frontier Fields. This will use the powerful magnifying properties of massive galaxy clusters to peer even deeper into the space around us. Hubblecast 70 takes a look at this phenomenon — known as gravitational lensing — exploring how it works, and how it can help us to uncover the secrets of the very distant Universe. Credit: ESA/Hubble Directed by: Nicola GuttridgeVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWritten by: Nicola Guttridge & Georgia BladonPresented by: Joe Liske (Dr J)Narration: Sara Mendes da CostaImages and animations: ESA/Hubble, NASA, Martin Kornmesser Clips from Hubble IMAX 3D video “Hubble: Galaxies Across Space and Time”. Credit: NASA, ESA and F. Summers (STScI) The Hubble Deep Fields Milky Way animation, gravitational lens animations: M. Kornmesser Gravitational lensing in action: NASA, ESA & L. Calçada Image of Abell 383 (heic1106a): NASA, ESA, J. Richard (CRAL) and J.-P. …

4 December 2013: A new book exploring Hubble and its discoveries, written by Oli Usher and Lars Lindberg Christensen [1], has now been published by Wiley and Springer. Entitled "The Universe Through the Eyes of Hubble", the book is a guided tour of the Universe, beginning with Hubble's history, technology, and optics, continuing on to explore Hubble's role in observing planets — both in our Solar System and beyond — stars, nebulae, galaxies, black holes, the dark cosmos, and mind-bending optical illusions. Finally, it looks to the future of Hubble: What is next for the space telescope? Hubble's most beautiful images — some of which have never before been published or seen outside the scientific community — are displayed alongside a mix of cutting-edge science that highlights the key discoveries of the past few years, and how they fit into Hubble's growing list of scientific achievements. The book is published in both English …

14 November 2013: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has observed many star clusters. As well as being scientifically interesting, these clusters produce stunning images, appearing like sparkling baubles in the sky. This episode of the Hubblecast looks at how Hubble has studied and imaged these beautiful objects, also introducing a striking new image of Messier 15, one of the oldest globular clusters in our skies. This is the best ever image of this cluster, which contains over 100 000 stars, a planetary nebula known as Pease 1 (otherwise named PN Ku 648 or Kürster 648), and something more exotic: at its core, it is thought to host a rare type of black hole. Credit: ESA/Hubble Directed by: Nicola Guttridge Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Written by: Nicola Guttridge Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: ESA/Hubble and NASA;View of the Milky Way: Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org)ESO/MPE/VISTA/J. Emerson/Digitized Sky Survey 2Animations: M. Kornmesser, L. Calçada, …

17 October 2013: The October issue of the ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter is now available, bringing information on the upcoming “Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV” conference in Rome in spring 2014, European involvement in Hubble, and the launch of the new Frontier Fields observing programme. The ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter promotes technical and operational news about the Hubble Space Telescope to European users and the scientific community. Released quarterly, this newsletter contains information about the scientific activities taking place with Hubble, calls for proposals, news on observing and programmatic developments, upcoming conferences, and other updates. This newsletter augments the information presented in public scientific press releases and announcements. It is also intended to create a communication channel between the European Hubble user community, and the staff scientists at ESA who support Hubble science operations. You can subscribe to the ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter here, or get in touch at [email protected]. If you are a …

2 September 2013: The Hubblecast, ESA/Hubble's video podcast series, has been awarded a Parsec Award for best "Fact Behind the Fiction" podcast series. From a final shortlist of 5, an international panel of judges considered the Hubblecast to best portray the facts — including the science, history, culture, and mythology — that influence and inspire speculative fiction podcasting. Exploring Hubble's discoveries, stunning images, complex topics within astronomy, the future of the space telescope and more, the Hubblecast releases 10 episodes annually and maintains an exceptionally high standard of visual and audio production. It was previously recognised for its excellence in 2011 by the MEDEA awards (ann1123), when a panel of judges "highly commended" the series for its innovation and good practice in the use of media in education. The Parsec Awards were established in 2006 by Mur Lafferty, Michael R. Mennenga, and Tracy Hickman to celebrate speculative fiction podcasting. Fans can nominate their …

30 August 2013: For episode 68 of the Hubblecast, Hubble transforms into more than just a telescope — it becomes a time machine! How can Hubble "look back in time" to see the Universe as it was billions of years ago? Dr. J explores the vast scale of our Universe, explaining how Hubble can be used to grasp cosmic distances, view very distant galaxies, and even explore our own past. Credit: ESA/Hubble Directed by: Nicola GuttridgeVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWritten by: Nicola GuttridgePresented by: Joe Liske (Dr J)Narration: Sara Mendes da CostaImages and animations: ESA/Hubble and NASA, M. Kornmesser Clips from Hubble IMAX 3D video “Hubble: Galaxies Across Space and Time”. Credit: NASA, ESA and F. Summers (STScI) Milky Way animation: Nick Risinger Supernova animation (hubblecast64b): ESA/Hubble (L. Calçada) Time machine model: Hameed Music: Zero ProjectWeb and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi ShidaCinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix-media-gmbh.de)Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

26 July 2013: ESA/Hubble have launched a new newsletter to promote technical and operational news about the Hubble Space Telescope to European users and the scientific community. Released quarterly, this newsletter will contain information about the scientific activities taking place with Hubble, calls for proposals, news on observing and programmatic developments, upcoming conferences, and other updates. This newsletter augments the information presented in public scientific press releases and announcements. It is also intended to create a communication channel between the European Hubble user community, and the staff scientists at ESA who support Hubble science operations. You can subscribe to the ESA/Hubble Science Newsletter here, or get in touch at [email protected]. If you are a media representative we recommend subscribing to the ESA/Hubble Media Newsletter, a weekly embargoed newsletter sent 48 hours prior to the publication of press releases. This newsletter is aimed exclusively at journalists. If you are a member of the public, …

20 June 2013: This episode of the Hubblecast explores the violent world of galactic mergers, as shown by the cosmic duo Arp 142 in a stunning new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Galaxies spend most of their life drifting through the cosmic expanse in isolation. But, every so often, two unfortunate galaxies stray a little too close to one another — as is the case with Arp 142. Showcased in a stunning new image from Hubble, these two galaxies uncannily resemble a penguin guarding its egg. The galaxies are in middle of a violent merger, with clouds of gas and dust colliding at breakneck speeds and triggering bursts of star formation. Credit: ESA/Hubble Directed by: Nicola GuttridgeVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWritten by: Nicola GuttridgeNarration: Joe Liske (Dr J)Images: ESA/Hubble, NASA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Music: Toomas ErmWeb and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi ShidaExecutive producer: Lars …

23 May 2013: This episode of the Hubblecast explores the Ring Nebula (Messier 57). Although this nebula is one of the most famous objects in our skies, more than 200 years after its discovery astronomers are still unveiling some of its secrets. The Ring Nebula was discovered in the late 18th century, but its true shape and structure has remained unclear. Now, a team of astronomers has used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, alongside existing ground-based data, to explore the Ring Nebula in depth. The astronomers wanted to better understand the nebula’s structure, evolution, physical conditions, and motion — and it turns out that the Ring Nebula is not actually very ring-shaped after all. Hubblecast 66 showcases stunning new Hubble images of this beautiful object, showing the bright, colourful centre of the nebula, and the dramatically turbulent space that surrounds it. Credit: ESA/Hubble Directed by: Nicola GuttridgeVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWritten by: …

19 April 2013: This episode of the Hubblecast celebrates 23 years of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with the unveiling of a beautiful and striking new Hubble image of the Horsehead Nebula. Our host Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) explains the secrets of nebulae, cosmic clouds of gas and dust that have been the subjects of some of Hubble’s most striking astronomical images. The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most distinctive, and is now shown in a whole new light thanks to a stunning new infrared image — revealing the delicate wisps of gas that are normally hidden by the thick dust that makes up the Horsehead’s famous and familiar shape. Credit: ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Web and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Nicola Guttridge Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J) Narration: Sara Mendes da Costa Images: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage …

3 April 2013: Most stars in the Universe are small and insignificant, and they will — eventually — fizzle out without much drama. But a few light up the sky when they die, and in the process, they don’t just tell us about the lives of stars: they create the building blocks of life, and help us to unravel the whole history of the Universe. These are the stars that end their lives as supernovae, explosions that are among the most violent events in the Universe. Over more than 20 years in orbit, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has proved to be an invaluable tool with which to unveil the secrets behind these stellar remnants. Join Dr J, aka Dr Joe Liske, in this explosive episode of the Hubblecast, and discover more about the violent side of the Universe. Credit ESA/Hubble Directed by: Oli Usher and Nicola Guttridge Visual design and editing: Martin …

6 March 2013: This episode of the Hubblecast explores how conceptual artist Tim Otto Roth has been inspired by scientific data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to create a unique work of art. Credit: ESA/HubbleVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli UsherNarrator: Sara Mendes da CostaImages: NASA, ESA, Denis Finnin (AMNH), Tim Otto Roth, Bob FosburyFootage: Herbert Zodet, Mary Estacion, Tim Otto Roth, Bob FosburyInterviews: Oli Usher, Mary EstacionMusic: Toomas ErmDirected by: Oli UsherExecutive producer: Lars Lindberg ChristensenSpecial thanks: Tim Otto Roth Bob Fosbury (ESO) Antonella Nota (ESA/STScI) Ken Sembach (STScI) Mike Shara (AMNH) Benjamin Staude Connie Fitzgerald (AMNH) Mary Estacion (STScI/OPO) Denis Finnin (AMNH) Frank Summers (STScI/OPO) The staff of STScI Office of Public Outreach The staff of the American Museum of Natural History

5 February 2013: Despite its appearance, which looks much like countless other galaxies, Messier 106 hides a number of secrets. In this episode of the Hubblecast, Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) takes us on a tour of the galaxy. Thanks to a new image, which combines data from Hubble with observations by amateur astronomer Robert Gendler, the galaxy’s secrets are revealed as never before. Credits ESA/HubbleVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Nicky Guttridge and Oli UsherNarrator: Dr Joe Liske (Dr J)Images: NASA, ESA, R. Gendler, J GaBany, Digitized Sky Survey 2Music: Toomas ErmDirected by: Oli UsherExecutive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

18 December 2012: In this episode of the Hubblecast, Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) invites us to tour NGC 5189, a planetary nebula in our galaxy. The nebula looks like a ribbon in space, with a complex structure that comes from the dying throes of a Sun-like star at its centre. Credits ESA/HubbleVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli UsherNarrator: Sara Mendes da CostaPresented by: Dr Joe Liske (Dr J)Images: NASA, ESA,, Digitized Sky Survey 2Music: John StanfordDirected by: Oli UsherExecutive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

14 December 2012: A calendar featuring Hubble’s most amazing pictures of the last year is now available to download for free. With pictures of galaxies, stars and nebulae, the 2013 Hubble Space Telescope calendar is guaranteed to brighten up every month. The calendar is available to download in a number of formats including PDF, JPEG and TIFF, and can easily be printed at home or at a print shop, as it is made available under a Creative Commons License.

6 December 2012: Episode 60 of the Hubblecast explores NGC 922, a galaxy that has been hit square-on by another. Ripples of star-formation are still propagating out across thousands of light-years of space over 300 million years after the collision, making it a prime example of what astronomers call a collisional ring galaxy. Credit ESA/HubbleVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Mathias Andre and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli UsherNarrator: Sara Mendes da CostaImages: NASA, ESA, Chandra X-ray Observatory, Digitized Sky Survey 2Visualisations and animations: B. Conn (MPIA), R. Smith (University of Concepción), R. Taylor (Arecibo Observatory); M. KornmesserMusic: Toomas ErmDirected by: Oli UsherExecutive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

27 November 2012: The Hubblecast, ESA’s popular vodcast which explores the Universe through the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, is now available with subtitles. Future episodes will be published with embedded subtitles in English, plus a selection of other languages submitted by a team of volunteer translators. Work on subtitling the archive of past episodes has already begun and will be ongoing during the coming year. To view subtitles, just click the “CC” (closed captioning) button, or select “audio and subtitles” from the control menu in iTunes. (You may need to re-download certain episodes to get the latest subtitles.) Full information on how to watch Hubblecast with subtitles, how to make them work with alternative software, and on how to contribute translations, is on the subtitles web page. To sign up to our volunteer translators' email list and get notice of new episodes, click here.

12 November 2012: In this episode of the Hubblecast, we do away with Hubble’s stunning pictures of the cosmos, and focus on one of the telescope’s most important — but least known — functions. Like a digital camera, Hubble’s cameras produce colour images by sampling just a handful of colours and combining them together into one picture. The detail is extraordinary — but while the colours are accurate enough for the human eye, they are not good enough for some kinds of scientific work, such as the study of distant galaxies and extrasolar planets.  For much of their research, astronomers use Hubble’s spectrometers, devices that split up light into a rainbow of component colours, to reveal many of the hidden properties of the Universe. These observing methods may not produce attractive images, but they lie behind some of the most profound science that Hubble does. In this episode, presenter Joe Liske (aka Dr …

16 October 2012: In this episode of the Hubblecast, Joe Liske (aka Dr J) shows how a team of astronomers has used Hubble and a battery of other telescopes to discover the secrets of massive galaxy cluster MACS J0717. They have discovered that an invisible filament of dark matter extends out of the cluster. This is our first direct glimpse of the scaffolding that gives the Universe its structure.

24 August 2012: An updated version of the popular ESA/Hubble Top 100 Images app is now available to download from iTunes. The new version takes full advantage of the third generation iPad’s retina display and quad core graphics. The free app transforms the iPad into an exciting window to the Universe and allows users to enjoy one hundred of the best images taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, as well as giving users the chance to learn more about astronomy from captions and extra information that is just a tap away. Thanks to the super-sharp retina display technology (containing 1 million more pixels than HDTV) these pictures look more spectacular than ever. Other new features include an index, allowing users to skip to individual images, as well as a smoother, cleaner slide show option accompanied by a brand new soundtrack from John Stanford. Feel the Universe at your fingertips by downloading the …

23 August 2012: In this episode of the Hubblecast, Joe Liske (aka Dr J) presents the winners of the Hidden Treasures image processing competition. In May 2012, we asked members of the public to delve into Hubble's vast science archive to uncover pictures that had never been seen outside of the scientific community — and then to try their hand at processing the scientific data into attractive images. This episode presents the top ten images from the several thousand submitted.

23 August 2012: Hubble has made over a million observations since launch, but only a small proportion are attractive images — and an even smaller number are ever actually seen by anyone outside the small groups of scientists that publish them. But the vast amount of data in the archive means that there are still many hundreds of beautiful images scattered among the valuable, but visually unattractive, scientific data that have never been enjoyed by the public. We call these pictures Hubble’s hidden treasures, and a few months ago, we invited the public to look through Hubble’s science archive to help us find them. The response was impressive, with almost 3000 submissions. More than a thousand of these images were fully processed: a difficult and time-consuming task. We’ve already started featuring the best of these in our Hubble Picture of the Week series. And to say thanks, we’re awarding prizes for the best …

1 August 2012: In April and May, ESA/Hubble invited the public to search through the archive and uncover hidden treasures (ann1203). These are Hubble images that have never been published, and have only ever been seen by a handful of scientists up to now. The response was overwhelming: almost 3000 submissions in two categories, for basic image searching in the archive, and advanced image processing using professional software. So it’s taken some time to collect and classify all the submissions. But now it’s time to decide who gets the prizes! The judges are hard at work looking through the submissions to decide who wins the top award. But we also want the public to have a say, with a people’s choice category which anyone can vote for. You can now vote on the images in both categories: The shortlist and voting page for the advanced image processing category is here. The shortlist and …

16 July 2012: ESA’s Facebook community for the Hubble Space Telescope has recently welcomed its 100 000th member. We would like to thank all our friends for their curiosity about space, their interest in the Hubble Space Telescope and their support in sharing the wonders of the Universe with the world. Each of our Facebook friends acts as a Hubble ambassador every time they share one of our Facebook stories or images with their friends. Although it may seem like a small gesture, their efforts play a role in the bigger picture. To illustrate the importance of that role, ESA/Hubble is launching a “Hubble’s Friends” campaign. Today we have uploaded a special photo on our Facebook page, carrying the message “I’m a friend of Hubble”. From today until Sunday, 22 July, our Facebook friends can tag themselves in the image. As the number of Facebook tags per photo is limited, we have created …

28 June 2012: In this episode of the Hubblecast, Dr J (aka Dr Joe Liske) presents the latest discovery about HD 189733b, an exoplanet that has been repeatedly studied by Hubble. Observations taken in 2011 using Hubble and the Swift satellite showed a flare from the planet’s parent star scorching the upper atmosphere and driving it off into space. This is the first time that clear change has been observed in an exoplanet’s atmosphere. The observations give a tantalising glimpse of changing weather on planets outside our Solar System. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles for the Hubblecast in multiple languages, or translate this video on dotSUB.

22 June 2012: The European science archive for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been transferred to ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) in Villanueva de la Cañada near Madrid, Spain. This guarantees a permanent home for Hubble science data following the closure of the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF), located at the headquarters of the European Southern Observatory near Munich, Germany. Prof Álvaro Gimenez Cañete, ESA’s Director of Science and Robotic Exploration said: “This year, European astronomers were awarded a record share of observing time with Hubble. Bringing the Hubble science archive to ESAC is part of ESA’s continuing commitment to European astronomers having access to the world’s most famous orbiting observatory.” In the latest allocation of observing time, in an open competition, European scientists were awarded 26.5% of Hubble orbits. Antonella Nota, ESA Hubble Project Scientist and Mission Manager explains: “ESA’s agreement with NASA guarantees 15% observing time for European …

31 May 2012: In this episode of the Hubblecast, scientists Jay Anderson and Roeland van der Marel show how they have used Hubble observations to predict the future of the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way. Projecting the motion of Andromeda’s stars over the next 8 billion years, the astronomers now know the path that galaxy is taking through space. And it’s heading straight for us! Computer simulations based on Hubble observations show how the two galaxies will crash together in around 4 billion years’ time.

17 April 2012: To celebrate the 22nd anniversary of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope this month, episode 54 of the Hubblecast gives a slideshow of some of the best images from over two decades in orbit, set to specially commissioned music. Please note that although this episode does not have narration, the images are described in subtitles which can be displayed by clicking on the “CC” (closed captioning) button. Find out how to view and contribute subtitles for the Hubblecast in multiple languages, or translate this video on dotSUB. List of images and descriptions: 1990: SaturnAmong the first images to be sent back from Hubble after its launch in April 1990, this image of Saturn is good by the standards of ground-based telescopes, but slightly blurry. This is because of the well-publicised problem with Hubble’s mirror, which did not allow images to be focused properly. 1991: Orion NebulaAlthough not perfectly sharp, this early …

27 March 2012: Over two decades in orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope has made a huge number of observations. Every week, we publish new ones on the Hubble website. But hidden in Hubble’s huge data archives are some truly breathtaking images that have hardly ever been seen by anyone. In this episode, Dr J, aka Dr Joe Liske, explains what all this data is, what it’s for, and how you can take a look at it yourself. If you’re want to try your hand at looking through the archive for hidden treasures, why not enter our Hidden Treasures competition (competition closes 31 May 2012). Find a great dataset and you could win an iPod Touch, try your hand at processing the image and you could win an iPad. This Hubblecast is the first with specially composed music by Toomas Erm, head of the control engineering department at the European Southern Observatory. Credit ESA/Hubble …

27 March 2012: Over two decades in orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope has made a huge number of observations. Every week, we publish new images on the ESA/Hubble website. But hidden in Hubble’s huge data archives are still some truly breathtaking images that have never been seen in public. We call them Hubble’s Hidden Treasures — and we’re looking for your help to bring them to light.We’re inviting the public into Hubble’s vast science archive to dig out the best unseen Hubble images. Find a great dataset in the Hubble Legacy Archive, adjust the contrast and colours using the simple online tools and submit to our Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Contest Flickr group, and you could win an iPod Touch in our Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Competition.For an extra challenge, why not try using the same software that the professionals use to turn the Hubble data into breath-taking images? Download the data from the Hubble …

18 January 2012: The New York Times has included the Back in Time app developed by the company Landka among its Top 10 iPad apps in 2011. ESA/Hubble went into partnership with Landka to deliver content for this educational app, which is an animated history e-book that guides the reader through time from the first moments of the Universe’s history until the most recent events. ESA/Hubble contributed images and animations for the first four chapters: The Big Bang, The First Stars, The Milky Way and The Solar System. According to The New York Times: “The coolest history textbook you’ll find on the iPad, Back in Time tells the story of the Universe using a 24-hour clock, where the Big Bang starts the day and humans appear in the final seconds.” An intuitive interface allows the user to scroll quickly through time, entering any major event in the history of our civilisation. Each event …

17 January 2012: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is famous for looking deep into the past of the Universe. But it can also predict the future. This episode of the Hubblecast takes us on a journey five billion years from now, to see the ultimate fate of the Solar System. Using stunning Hubble imagery of the death throes of Sun-like stars, narrator Joe Liske (aka Dr J) shows us what will happen when the Sun runs out of nuclear fuel — and how its wreckage will form the building blocks of new generations of stars. Credit ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli UsherNarration: Joe Liske (Dr J)Images: NASA, ESAAnimations: Martin KornmesserMusic: Zero ProjectDirected by: Oli UsherExecutive Producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

15 December 2011: In this episode of the Hubblecast, we take a tour of the compact star-forming region Sh 2-106. Its hourglass shape is caused by the final, violent phases of a star’s formation in the middle of the gaseous nebula. This episode explains some of the science behind Hubble’s observations and brings them to life with detailed 3D computer visualisations. Credit ESA/HubbleVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli Usher and Bárbara FerreiraNarration: Joe Liske (Dr J)Images: NASA, ESAAnimations: Greg Bacon (STScI), Martin Kornmesser (ESA/Hubble)Music: Zero ProjectDirected by: Oli UsherExecutive Producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

6 December 2011: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has passed another milestone in its almost 21 years of observations: the publication of the 10 000th refereed scientific paper based on Hubble data. Alvaro Gimenez, Director of Science and Robotic Exploration for the European Space Agency said: “Reaching the milestone of the 10 000th scientific paper reminds us that Hubble is one of the most successful scientific endeavours in history. European scientists have played a big part in this, and have been been intimately involved with Hubble since before the telescope’s launch. Thanks to ESA’s partnership with NASA, Europe’s astronomers have made major contributions to our understanding of the Universe.” European scientists are guaranteed at least 15% of the observing time on Hubble under the terms of ESA’s participation in this international project. Over the years, scientists in over 35 countries have engaged in Hubble research. The United States are responsible for the most …

22 November 2011: From the Distant Past, a laser art installation by German conceptual artist Tim Otto Roth, is now on public display in New York City, USA. Two green scanning lasers project spectra from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope onto the sphere of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. The spectra look like representations of brainwaves or heartbeats on a medical monitor, or the latest stock exchange data as they scroll around the planetarium’s dome. But in fact, they chart the colours and chemical composition of distant galaxies and quasars observed by Hubble. Some of these observations are of galaxies so distant that their light has taken many billions of years to reach us. “So the green laser waves represent some of the oldest colours in the Universe,” Roth explains. From the Distant Past, which was previously exhibited in Venice, Italy and Baltimore, USA, was created by Tim …

2 November 2011: The Hubblecast has been highly commended in the 2011 MEDEA awards. An international panel of educational and media experts judged that the Hubblecast was among the best entries in this European competition that recognises innovation and good practice in the use of media in education. There were 115 entries from 28 countries. Nine finalists were chosen, with a further 13 — including the Hubblecast — highly commended by the jury. The Hubblecast’s Dr J (aka Dr Joe Liske) is no stranger to the MEDEA awards. In 2009, Eyes on the Skies, an hour-long documentary presented by Dr J won the Special Jury Award at the MEDEA Awards. Eyes on the Skies celebrates the 400th anniversary of the invention of the telescope and the International Year of Astronomy. The MEDEA Awards are supported by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission through the MEDEA2020 project.

25 October 2011: In episode 49 of the Hubblecast, Dr Joe Liske (aka Dr J) asked viewers to send in their questions about astronomy and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. In episode 50, Dr J picks his favourite few questions from the hundreds that were sent in. Credits ESA/HubbleVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli UsherPresented by: Joe Liske (Dr J)Images: NASA, ESAMusic: movetwo and zero-projectDirected by: Oli UsherCinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix-media-gmbh.de)Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

29 September 2011: A fleet of spacecraft including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has shown unprecedented details in the environs of a supermassive black hole. Observations reveal huge bullets of gas being driven away from the gravitational monster and a corona of very hot gas hovering above the disc of matter that is falling into the black hole.A team led by Jelle Kaastra of SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research made use of data from ESA’s XMM-Newton and Integral spacecraft (which study X-rays and gamma rays, respectively), the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (for ultraviolet observations with the COS instrument), NASA’s Chandra (X-ray) and Swift (gamma and X-ray) satellites, and the ground-based telescopes WHT and PAIRITEL. The black hole that the team chose to study lies at the heart of the galaxy Markarian 509, 500 million light-years away. This black hole is colossal, containing 300 million times the mass of the Sun, and is …

23 September 2011: A public art installation featuring Hubble observations of distant galaxies, quasars and stars is going to the USA. From the Distant Past features a laser projecting spectra from distant celestial objects onto the facades of buildings. While the green lines might appear abstract at first, they represent light, split into its constituent colours, that has travelled across space for billions of years from some of the most distant galaxies ever observed. The idea for the installation was generated by German concept artist Tim Otto Roth, in collaboration with astronomer Bob Fosbury, the former head of the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility. Following the amazing success of the first public exhibition of the installation in Venice, in 2010 (ann1011), the Space Telescope Science Institute — the organisation that operates Hubble — has invited Tim to bring his exhibit to the US. Tim Otto Roth says: “I’ve learned that it’s spectra that …

16 September 2011: Using the slitless grism on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 to probe the distant universe, astronomers have found supermassive black holes growing in surprisingly small galaxies. The findings suggest that central black holes formed at an early stage in galaxy evolution. This study is part of the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) and will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.Read the full story from the University of California Santa Cruz here. More Information This research was presented in a paper to appear in the Astrophysical Journal.The team is composed of Jonathan Trump, Dale Kocevski, Elizabeth McGrath, David Koo, Sandra Faber, Mark Mozena, and Hassen Yesuf (University of California, Santa Cruz); Benjamin Weiner and Stephanie Juneau (Steward Observatory); Claudia Scarlata (University of Minnesota); Eric Bell (University of Michigan); Elise Laird and Cyprian Rangel (Imperial College of London); Renbin Yan (New York University); Hakim Atek …

31 August 2011: In this episode of the Hubblecast, Joe Liske (aka Dr J) looks at newborn stars firing out jets of matter. These jets may cast new light on how the Sun formed 4.5 billion years ago.An international team of scientists led by astronomer Patrick Hartigan of Rice University in Houston, USA, has collected enough high-resolution Hubble images over a 14-year period to stitch together time-lapse movies of these jets. Credit ESA/Hubble & NASA/STScIVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli Usher and Donna Weaver (STScI)Narration: Joe Liske (Dr J)Images: NASA, ESA and P. Hartigan (Rice University)Footage: STScI, Rice UniversityAnimations: Greg Bacon (STScI), Patrick Hartigan (Rice University), Martin Kornmesser (ESA/Hubble)Interviews: Mary Estacion (STScI) and Jade Boyd (Rice University)Music: movetwo and John Dyson (from the album Darklight)Directed by: Oli UsherExecutive Producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

30 August 2011: Do you have a burning astronomy question? Now’s the time to ask. To celebrate the 50th episode of ESA’s Hubblecast series, our host, Dr Joe Liske, aka Dr J, will be answering your astronomy questions. Maybe you want to know more about black holes, supernovae, or dark matter? Or perhaps you would like to know where to spot Hubble in the sky?Whatever your question, let us know. Post your question, either as a video or in writing, to our Facebook page at facebook.com/hubbleesa, tweet us @hubble_space or email Dr J at [email protected]. For Facebook, post a question on our wall, or post a link to your question on any video-sharing site. While you’re here, why not like our page too?For Twitter, address your question to our account by directing your question, or a link to your video, to @hubble_space. While you’re here, follow our account to keep up to date …

21 July 2011: In this episode of the Hubblecast, Joe Liske — aka Dr J — takes us on a tour of the outer reaches of the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31), the closest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way. Hubble’s vision is so sharp that it resolves the grey blob that’s visible to the naked eye into the countless individual stars that make it up, letting us catch a glimpse of the night sky in a galaxy other than our own. Credit ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin KornmesserWeb and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli UsherPresented by: Joe Liske (Dr J)Images: NASA, ESA, T.M. Brown, A. Ferguson, Digitized Sky Survey 2 (Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin), Koen van GorpMusic: movetwoDirected by: Oli UsherCinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix-media-gmbh.de)Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

12 July 2011: This blue ball is Neptune, the eighth and outermost planet of our Solar System [1]. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope made this picture on 25-26 June 2011 to celebrate the first anniversary of Neptune’s discovery... in Neptune years. Neptune’s leisurely journey around the Sun takes 60 190 Earth days — just under 165 Earth years. This means that 11 July 2011 marked the first time that Neptune has completed a full orbit since its discovery on the night of 23-24 September 1846.Neptune is too distant and too faint to be seen with the naked eye, and so its discovery had to wait for the invention of telescopes.While Galileo Galilei did chance upon it, when it was coincidentally close to the planet Jupiter early in 1613, his notebooks show he misidentified it as a star. After this near miss, Neptune’s true identity would remain hidden for another two centuries.In the summer …

5 July 2011: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has made its millionth observation since its launch 21 years ago. The telescope was used to search for the chemical signature of water in the atmosphere of planet HAT-P-7b [1], a gas giant larger than Jupiter which orbits the star HAT-P-7. Alvaro Gimenez, head of science and robotic exploration for the European Space Agency said: “With a million observations and many thousands of scientific papers to its name, Hubble is one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built. As well as changing our view of the Universe with its stunning imagery, Hubble has revolutionised whole areas of science. Thanks to ESA’s participation in the Hubble project, the European scientific community is playing a starring role in these achievements.”Although Hubble is perhaps best known for its detailed images of astronomical objects, the millionth observation was actually made with a spectrograph. Spectroscopy is the technique of …

22 June 2011: This joint episode of the Hubblecast and ESOcast presents Abell 2744, an unusual cluster of galaxies nicknamed "Pandora’s Cluster". Looking at the galaxies, gas and dark matter in the cluster, scientists have reconstructed the series of huge collisions that created it, and have uncovered some strange phenomena never seen together before. Credit ESA/Hubble, ESOVisual design and editing: Martin KornmesserAnimations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis CalcadaWeb and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi ShidaWritten by: Oli Usher and Richard HookNarration: Gaitee HussainImages: NASA, ESA, ESOMusic: movetwoDirected by: Oli UsherExecutive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

16 June 2011: The Hubblecast's Dr J, aka Joe Liske, takes us on a tour of Centaurus A, a bright and dusty galaxy in the Southern sky. Hubble’s observations are the most detailed ever made of this galaxy. Highlights include bright clouds of glowing gas in which stars are being formed, dark streams of opaque dust and a supermassive black hole spitting out huge jets of matter. Credit: ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher and Lee Pullen Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J) Narration: Bob Fosbury Images: NASA, ESA, ESO Music: movetwo Directed by: Oli Usher Cinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix-media-gmbh.de) Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

9 June 2011: In 1987, the light from an exploding star in a neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, reached Earth. Since its launch in 1990, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has studied the wreckage of this dead star, called Supernova 1987A, and has watched it evolve. Supernova 1987A is the closest supernova to Earth to have been observed since the invention of the telescope, and is therefore an ideal laboratory for studying these phenomena.A new study, published on 9 June in the journal Nature, sheds new light on one aspect of this supernova: for about fourteen years after the explosion was first seen, its afterglow gradually got dimmer as the radioactive elements produced by the supernova decayed. More recently, it has started to brighten once more, and is now two to three times brighter than it was at its dimmest point. The team, led by Josefin Larsson of the University of Stockholm, …

23 May 2011: Though the Universe is filled with billions upon billions of stars, the discovery of a single variable star in 1923 altered the course of modern astronomy. The star goes by the inauspicious name of Hubble variable number one, or V1, and resides in the outer regions of our neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy, or Messier 31. In the early 1900s, most astronomers considered the Milky Way to be a single island universe of stars, with nothing observable beyond its boundaries. The Andromeda Galaxy was catalogued as just one of many faint, fuzzy patches of light that astronomers called spiral nebulae. Were these spiral nebulae part of the Milky Way or were they independent island universes lying outside our galaxy? Astronomers didn’t know for sure, until Edwin Hubble found a star in Andromeda that brightened and faded in a predictable pattern, like a lighthouse beacon, and identified it as V1, a Cepheid variable. …

21 April 2011: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is working on three of the most ambitious projects in its history just now. These multicycle treasury programs are using Hubble’s unique ability to observe across the spectrum from ultraviolet, through visible, to infrared light, to build up a library of data which will serve astronomers for many years. In this podcast episode, presenter Dr J (aka Joe Liske) looks at these projects, and how they will complement the capabilities of the next great thing in space-based astronomy, the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Animations: Martin Kornmesser, Luis Calcada Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J) Narration: Gaitee Hussain Images: NASA, ESA Music: movetwo Directed by: Oli Usher Cinematography: Peter Rixner (www.perix-media-gmbh.de) Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

7 April 2011: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has joined forces with other telescopes to study the source of one of the most puzzling bursts of high-energy gamma rays and X-rays ever observed. More than a week after the burst was first spotted, high-energy radiation continues to brighten and fade. “We know of objects in our own galaxy that can produce repeated bursts, but they are thousands to millions of times less powerful than the bursts we are seeing now. This is truly extraordinary,” said Andrew Fruchter at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, USA. Astronomers say they have never seen anything this bright, long lasting and variable before. Usually, gamma ray bursts mark the destruction of a massive star, but X-ray emission from these events never lasts more than a few hours. Although research is ongoing, scientists say that the unusual blast likely arose when a star wandered too close to …

1 April 2011: The ESA Hubble Space Telescope Facebook page has just welcomed its 50 000th Facebook friend. This page brings Hubble Space Telescope fans the latest news from ESA, as NASA’s partner in this international project.   As a thank-you message for their friendship, the image above, showing NGC 5882 in the constellation of Lupus (The Wolf), was produced specially for all ESA/Hubble Facebook fans. NGC 5882 is a planetary nebula with unconventional good looks — quite bright, but small, with two distinct, but non-uniform regions: an elongated inner shell of gas and a fainter aspheric shell that surrounds it. However, the dying star at the heart of the planetary nebula dominates the image, shining brightly with an incredible surface temperature of almost 70 000 degrees Celsius. (By comparison, the surface temperature of the Sun is about 5500 degrees Celsius.) This picture comes from images taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. If you …

28 March 2011: Access a universe of knowledge about the Universe with three new free iPad apps from ESO’s education and Public Outreach Department (ePOD), available just in time for the iPad 2. Together with the European Space Agency (ESA), ePOD has launched the free ESA/Hubble Top 100 Images app, which brings users the best Hubble pictures from ESA, as NASA’s partner in this international project. Making full use of the iPad 2’s new features, users will be delighted by some of the most dramatic views of the Universe taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as having the chance to learn more about astronomy. Each image is explained in a caption with additional information just a tap away. In the slideshow mode the Top 100 can be contemplated with background music from Zero Project, while each high resolution image makes full use of the bright iPad screen when used as wallpaper. …

9 March 2011: “We have measured the distance to the most remote mature cluster of galaxies ever found,” says the lead author of the study, Raphael Gobat (CEA, Paris). “The surprising thing is that that when we look closely at this galaxy cluster it doesn’t look young — many of the galaxies have settled down and don’t resemble the usual star-forming galaxies seen in the early Universe.” Clusters of galaxies are the largest structures in the Universe that are held together by gravity. Astronomers expect these clusters to grow through time and so massive clusters should be rare in the early Universe. Although very distant clusters have been seen before, they appear to be young clusters in the process of formation, and are not settled, mature systems like this one. The cluster, called CL J1449+0856 [1], was first spotted by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, and its distance measured using the Very Large …

28 February 2011: One of Hubble’s mission objectives at launch was to study black holes, and to test the theory that supermassive black holes lurk in the centres of many galaxies. Two decades later, Hubble has helped solve that mystery — and in the process, asked new questions that have astronomers scratching their heads. The Hubblecast’s Dr J, aka Dr Joe Liske, takes us on a journey through some of Hubble’s work on black holes, and busts a few myths along the way. Credits: Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Animations: Martin Kornmesser and Luis Calçada Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher and Sarah Reed Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J) Narrator: Gaitee Hussain Images: NASA, ESA, ESO, Sloan Digital Sky Survey (David W. Hogg, Michael R. Blanton), Lockheed Martin, Google. Music: movetwo Directed by: Oli Usher Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

28 January 2011: Our very own Hubblecast host, Dr J, aka Dr Joe Liske, will be starring in the new German-language TV series Hubble: Mission Universum starting this Saturday (29 January) at 19.35 CET. The programme will be broadcast on the Austrian satellite/cable channel, Servus TV, which is available in a number of countries, including Germany, Italy and Switzerland. So far six episodes have been confirmed. The show will be celebrating the success of the famous NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which does much more than take pretty pictures: since it was launched into orbit over 20 years ago, Hubble has made almost a million spectacular observations and has revolutionised our understanding of the Universe. Using Hubble’s stunning catalogue of images, Dr J will be exploring some of science’s most intriguing questions. Also keep up to date with the Hubble team by watching the Hubblecast, or follow Dr J’s exploits on Facebook.

27 January 2011: What makes a scientific discovery really important? It’s partly down to how much scientists use the discovery in subsequent work — but it’s also partly down to what inspires their imagination. In this episode, the Hubblecast talks to some leading astronomers about their favourite Hubble discovery. Meanwhile, our presenter, Dr J, struggles to make up his mind. Credits: ESA/Hubble Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Filming: Herbert Zodet Animations: Martin Kornmesser and Luis Calçada Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher Interviews by: Oli Usher Presented by: Joe Liske (Dr J) Music: movetwo Directed by: Oli Usher Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

12 January 2011: The final edition of the ST-ECF Newsletter has just been released. The Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF) was a collaborative project between the European Space Agency and the European Southern Observatory and acted as the scientific and technical coordination centre for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in Europe. Its 26-year-long history is captured in the 48 issues of the Newsletter. The ST-ECF closed its doors on 31 December 2010 (heic1019) In addition to covering the closure of ST-ECF, the final ST-ECF Newsletter features: An account and images of the third Science with the Hubble Space Telescope conference, which was held in Venice, Italy, in October 2010. Details about the public release of nearly 50 000 slitless spectra obtained with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Information about the future of the ST-ECF website, following the closure of the group. The Newsletter is available for download in PDF format from the …

14 December 2010: Hubble’s history of scientific breakthroughs has made us think afresh about our Universe. But behind the astronomical successes is a rollercoaster ride of scientific and technical challenges going back decades. The Hubblecast caught up with some of the key players in Hubble’s history, including an astronaut, a Nobel Prize winner and one of the scientists who diagnosed Hubble’s blurred vision in 1990. In this episode, narrated by veteran ESA scientist Bob Fosbury, they tell Hubble’s story through their personal experiences. Credits ESA/Hubble. Visual design and editing: Martin Kornmesser Filming: Herbert Zodet Footage and photos: Herbert Zodet, NASA Animations: Martin Kornmesser and Luis Calçada Web and technical support: Lars Holm Nielsen and Raquel Yumi Shida Written by: Oli Usher Interviews by: Oli Usher Narration: Dr Bob Fosbury Music: movetwo Directed by: Oli Usher Executive producer: Lars Lindberg Christensen

29 October 2010: In early 2009 a team of astronauts visited Hubble and, as part of their mission, installed a new camera: the WFC3. As well as providing scientists with higher resolution observations than ever before, the pictures provided by WFC3 are among Hubble’s prettiest yet. This episode of the Hubblecast looks at the science behind this instrument, including how it is helping Hubble to see the invisible, look far back in time and spot objects further away from us than those seen by any other telescope in history.