Discovering the Mystery of the Universe

This photo shows the HCG-87 galaxies in the constellation of Gemini. Its distance from our earth is approximately 400 million light-years. Near the center of the picture, there is a large spiral galaxy with fuzzy-like elliptical galaxies on its right side, are also identified as group of HCG-87 galaxies. After a close examination, these galaxies are found quite distance away from the HCG-87 galaxies.

These two galaxies are inter-related in terms of their mutual gravitational pulls that affect their structure and evolution direction. This image came from the Gemini Observatory Station located in the Southern part of Chile. Before the existence of Hubble Site, this place is served as the most ideal place for the galaxies observation.

Hubble Space Telescope

This space picture is taken from Hubble Space Telescope (HST). In some occasions, galaxies tend to form in groups. For example, our Milk Way is a group of one. A small group of small galaxies that compact around the universe may raise the attention from the astronomers. They pay attention to those small galaxies as they will gradually destruct themselves out from the aerospace. In fact, HCG-87 galaxies in the past 100 million years had gradually extended and evolved around the center of the universe due to their mutual attraction. Despite the gravitational pull, the dust collides with the gas, resulting in the occurrence of the star formation with bright beam to actively provide substances to the center of the universe. HCG-87 constitutes of three galaxies. We can see these galaxies that appear in few bright stars. This picture was taken with a Hubble Space Telescope in July, 1999, enabling the in-depth observation towards the evolution and assembling of HCG-87 galaxies.

This is a very unusual mixture form of blue nebula (extended astronomical object) composes of red hot gas and dark dust in the orbit around the center region of the constellation of Sagittarius A. This was an image taken with blue ray lens of HST. This infrared image shows that the center part where nebula is active in is actually a black hole that forms up the spiral nebura with its mass of billion times of the sun. The constellation of Sagittarius A is obviously the result of two galaxies collision and at the same time, the residues due to collision are continuously being consumed by the center black hole. Astronomers believe that activities take place in the center black hole will produce radioactive rays. It is fortunate that it is 10 million light-years away from us, making it as a laboratory for astronomers to explore the mystery of the tremendous energy in the universe.

This photo clearly shows the overlapping of the massive gaseous planets- the scene before the Jupiter planet. The dark spot seen on the left is its own shadow. If it is viewed from the dark shadow portion, it is actually a scene of solar eclipse. Very often, one on earth can see the Jupiter being projected in its own shadow. In several months time, one can see other Galileo satellite from the earth as they trace almost the same level. This color image was shot and enhanced by the Cassini spacecraft two years ago. In 2004, Cassini flew over Jupiter to Saturn.

No wonder Jupiter has become a favorable planet for the astronomers to place their ground-based telescopes. In the solar system, this largest planet is surrounded by four largest satellites, and it is famous for its Great Red Spot, the place where 300 years record of huge hurricanes existed. In Greenwich Time between 7:19 and 8:40 on December 15, 2002, over 1,000 pixels of image processing of 21 conditions of Jupiter had been recorded.

This image was photographed by Hubble. It is a group of infant stars, nebulae, called the Small Magellanic Clouds (SMC), a good companion of the Milky Way, and is 210,000 light-years distance away from us. This image was prepared as a background picture of nebula NGC 346 by Hubble. The hydrogen atom within these young stars has not experienced any fusion processes. Interestingly, the mass of the smallest stars is half of our sun. It is very common in the galaxy for the birth of the stars, but these smaller stars preserved as more primitive galaxies that astronomers believe that such a small galaxies as a basic unit in the formation of large galaxies. Most of these galaxies existed in the early universe. The back of the Small Magellanic Clouds is the small galaxy called NGC 346. NGC 346 comprises of more than 2,500 infant stars, making up the total number of 70,000 stars. Within these two small galaxies, the oldest star aged 45 billion years old, while the youngest is more than 500 years old.