This weekend marks the twenty-sixth year in orbit for the Hubble Space Telescope , which was launched on April 24 , 1990 , aboard the Shuttle Discovery .
Every twelvemonth tocommemorate the twenty-four hours , Hubble follow a specific object of astronomical importance . This year , NASA and ESA have blame the incredible Bubble Nebula .
The nebula , also known as NGC 7635 , rest 8,000 low-cal - years from Earth in the constellation of Cassiopeia . The house of cards , which is over 10 short - years in diam , was created by vivid stellar wind generated by a bright massive asterisk within .
The star , SAO 20575 , is between 10 and 20 solar masses , very young and very hot . It emits intense UV radiation , which over clock time has sculpted the textile from which it spring into the nebula we see today .
Although the bubble is unco symmetric , SAO 20575 is not site anywhere near the center of the house of cards . Astronomers are not indisputable how such a neat degree of proportion has been maintained for so long .
As NGC 7635 has expand , it has encountered the gargantuan molecular cloud locate around it , which smoothen in the brightness from SAO 20575 . Nevertheless , the house of cards keeps expanding , motivate by starring breaking wind of over 100,000 klick ( 60,000 miles ) per hour .
SAO 20575 is also singular for another feature . It is besiege by cometary knots , dense molecular clumps that acquire long tails in their interaction with the stellar wind . These cometic knots are larger in size than the Solar System and each has about the mass of Earth .
The nebula was first discovered in 1787 by William Herschel – the discoverer of Uranus – and it has been celebrate by Hubble in the yesteryear , but never like this . This double is a mosaic of four unlike photo taken by Hubble ’s Wide airfield Camera 3 . The combination provides us with the high - resolution view of the Bubble Nebula yet .
It is no surprise , then , that this spectacular look-alike was pick out to remember Hubble ’s incredible workplace over the last 26 geezerhood .
