N11 (23/7/2006) 
哈勃太空望遠鏡能夠觀測到很多地面望遠鏡不能看到的細緻景象，如距離我們16000光年的大麥哲倫雲中的恆星誕生區域N11，在這星雲中，佈滿大量的氣體、塵埃、年輕的恆星。
Caption:: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures the iridescent tapestry of star birth in a neighboring galaxy in this panoramic view of glowing gas, dark dust clouds, and young, hot stars. The star-forming region, catalogued as N11B, lies in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), located only 160,000 light-years from Earth. With its high resolution, the Hubble Space Telescope is able to view details of star formation in the LMC as easily as ground-based telescopes are able to observe stellar formation within our own Milky Way galaxy.
Credit:: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) |
Jovian Red Spots 木星紅斑 (22/7/2006) 
木星上的大紅斑和小紅斑本是兩個位處不同緯度的風暴，隨著雲帶的轉動，大小紅斑正相遇。北雙子天文台利用了自適應光學記錄了這現象，由於利用近紅外線波段進行拍攝，所以顆紅斑的顏色均為白色。這兩顆紅斑是較高的大氣結構，藍色的是較低的大氣。
Caption:: Gemini North adaptive optics image of Jupiter and its two red spots (which apppear white because this is a near-infrared image; in visible light they appear reddish). In this color composite image, white indicates cloud features at relatively high altitudes; blue indicates lower cloud structures; and red represents still deeper cloud features. The two red spots appear more white than red, because their tops hover high above the surrounding clouds. Also prominent is the polar stratospheric haze, which makes Jupiter bright near the pole (unlike the other orange/red features in this image, the polar haze is high in Jupiter's atmosphere). Other tiny white spots are regions of high clouds, like towering thunderheads. In visible light Jupiter looks orangish, but in the near-infrared the blue color is due to strong absorption features. The blue mid-level clouds are also closest to what one would see in a visual light image.
Credit:: Travis Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory), Gemini ALTAIR adaptive optics team |
Galactic Center 銀河中心 (21/7/2006) 
銀河系的中心範圍附近很熱鬧，在錢德拉X射線望遠鏡的影像中可以看到三個重型的星團，分別是圓拱星團、五重星團和銀心星團。這些星團中質量大的恆星很光亮，由伴星放出的物質撞擊到表面，而發出很強的X射線源。中央最光亮的是銀河系核心的超級黑洞人馬座A*。
Caption:: This Chandra X-ray image shows three massive star clusters, the Arches (upper right), Quintuplet (upper center), and the GC star cluster (bottom center), which is near the enormous black hole known as Sagittarius A*. The massive stars in these clusters can themselves be very bright, point-like X-ray sources, when winds blowing off their surfaces collide with winds from an orbiting companion star.
Credit:: NASA/CXC/UMass Amherst/Q.D.Wang et al. |
Xanadu 世外桃園 (20/7/2006) 
在土衛六泰坦上，大陸般大小的地區－「世外桃園」是一片特別明亮的地區，卡西尼探測船利用雷達看到河流渠道的網絡，很可能是由液態甲烷或乙烷流動所致。
Caption:: A network of river channels is located atop Xanadu, the continent-sized region on Saturn's moon Titan. This radar image was captured by the Cassini Radar Mapper on April 30, 2006. These winding, meandering river channels start from the top of the image and run like a fork in the road, splitting to the right and left of the image. At Titan's chilly conditions, streams of methane and/or ethane might flow across parts of the region.
Credit:: NASA, JPL |
Trifid Nebula 三葉星雲 (19/7/2006) 
位於人馬座的M20三葉星雲，中央有三大條由塵埃組成的黑條，利用哈勃太空望遠鏡，天文學家能清楚看到這「三葉」。
Caption:: Three huge intersecting dark lanes of interstellar dust make the Trifid Nebula one of the most recognizable and striking star birth regions in the night sky. The dust, silhouetted against glowing gas and illuminated by starlight, cradles the bright stars at the heart of the Trifid Nebula. This nebula, also known as Messier 20 and NGC 6514, lies within our own Milky Way Galaxy about 9,000 light-years (2,700 parsecs) from Earth, in the constellation Sagittarius. This new image from the Hubble Space Telescope offers a close-up view of the center of the Trifid Nebula, near the intersection of the dust bands, where a group of recently formed, massive, bright stars is easily visible.
Credit:: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) |
