NASA's Hubble Celebrates 21st Anniversary with "Rose" of Galaxies

NASA image release April 20, 2011

To see a video of this image go here: www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/5637796622

To celebrate the 21st anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's deployment into space, astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., pointed Hubble's eye at an especially photogenic pair of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. The larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC 1810, has a disk that is distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational tidal pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813. This image is a composite of Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 data taken on December 17, 2010, with three separate filters that allow a broad range of wavelengths covering the ultraviolet, blue, and red portions of the spectrum.

Hubble was launched April 24, 1990, aboard Discovery's STS-31 mission. Hubble discoveries

revolutionized nearly all areas of current astronomical research from planetary science to cosmology.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

To read more about this image go here: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/hubble-rose.html

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

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