The blob was discovered in 2007 by Dutch high school teacher Hanny van Arkel. According to the news story which ran yesterday, "The cosmic blob, called Hanny's Voorwerp (Hanny's Object in Dutch) appears to be a solidary green island floating near a normal-looking spiral galaxy, called IC 2497. Since the discovery, puzzled astronomers have used a slew of telescopes, including X-ray and radio observatories, to help unwrap the mystery. Astronomers found that Hanny's Voorwerp is the only visible part of a 300-light-year-long gaseous streamer stretching around the galaxy. . . Now, with the help of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have uncovered a pocket of young star clusters (colored yellow-orange in the image) at the tip of the green-colored Hanny's Voorwerp." Gas flowing from IC 2497 seems to have compressed the streamer, thus causing the birth of these stars. Think of a gigantic tube of toothpaste!
At the Hubble web site you can download a Hubble image as wallpaper for your computer, if that photo of kittens sleeping in a basket has been around too long. You can also get a mural-sized version of a favorite Hubble image to brighten up that drab wall in your living room! ("Be the first person on your block....") Here, too, you will find instructions for building a scale model of the HST made from PVC pipe plus bits and bobs from your local hardware and hobby stores. The model's designer, Hubble scientist Max Mutchler, age 42, does presentations in schools and uses the model to illustrate his talks. He says he gets e-mail from every corner of the world: messages from science teachers, museums, and kids whose models have won their schools' science fairs.
The Hubble Space Telescope is now 20 years, 8 months, and 19 days into its mission. Its contribution to astronomy and astrophysics is beyond calculation. For people of enlightened faith, it has also confirmed the Creator's flair for the great and unexpected, while inviting us to explore God's universe more deeply.
But the telescope's days are numbered. HST will continue operating until at least 2014 when its successor, the James Web Space Telescope, is scheduled for launch. HST will remain aloft until sometime between 2019 and 2032 when, according to NASA, it will finally "de-orbit" and burn up in the atmosphere. Well, most of it will burn up. A few chunks will survive to hit the ground, with a 1-in-700 chance that this debris will strike a human being, "causing death or more serious injury," as someone once put it. Rest assured that NASA is working on that problem. After all, it's just rocket science. •••
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