March 26, 2012 - Hubble Bubble

The Week in Space March 26 - April 1, 2012 Hubble Bubble A delicate sphere of gas, captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, floats serenely in the depths of space. The pristine shell, or bubble, is the result of gas that is being shocked by the expanding blast wave from a supernova. Called SNR 0509, the bubble is the visible remnant of a powerful stellar explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small galaxy about 160,000 light-years from Earth. Ripples in the shell’s surface may be caused by either subtle variations in the density of the ambient interstellar gas, or possibly driven from the interior by pieces of the ejecta. The bubble is twenty-three light-years across and is expanding at more than 18 million kilometers (11 million miles) per hour. This Hubble image utilized the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Imager 3.Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) / J. Hughes (Rutgers University) Weekly CalendarMarch 26 - April 1, 2012Holidays - Sky Events - Space History Monday 26Moon at apogeeVenus 1.8° north of Moon 2009: First three-member crew of ISS Expedition 19 launched Tuesday 27Venus at greatest elongation (46° E)Juno appears stationary 1969: ...