>>INTERVIEWER: Far far away in our own galaxy cosmic forces are awakening in a new
born star. NASA has just released a new image from Hubble a newborn star
Hubble Space Telescope that shows us this cosmic lightsaber, and here to tell us about
more about what we're seeing is Dr. Padi Boyd at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center.
Thanks for joining us. >>PADI: Sure my pleasure. So NASA just released
this new image that some are calling a cosmic lightsaber. What we are seeing in this image
this is actually a region in our galaxy pretty close by
in the Orion star-forming region, so it's like a near neighbor.
And what we're looking at here is a very young star, a newborn baby star, in a frantic
feeding frenzy. That material around the star is actually accreting due to gravity
and it's spewing out along the two poles, these are called bipolar jets,
or bipolar outflows. Material coming out at supersonic speeds, and it looks
uncanny, like a double-bladed light saber.
>>INTERVIEWER: What are Hubble's most beautiful images of stars and galaxies far, far away?
>>PADI: Well Hubble has taken some really impressive images of nearby galaxies
spirals just like our own, where you can see these star-forming regions
as a whole lighting up the galaxy. You see galaxies
colliding as they evolve, and also that starts new star formation.
And when we do a core sample of the universe, this Hubble Deep Field,
we can actually see 10,000 galaxies at all different stages of evolutional
from about the earliest times when we think galaxies started to form, all the way up to the current
time. >>INTERVIEWER: Now, has Hubble ever seen a death star?
Padi: We haven't actually seen a Death Star like you have in the movies, but
we certainly do have the ability to watch stars as they evolve and go into their deaths
rows. We know that massive stars and supernovae
smaller stars gently eject their outer layers into space.
This is a supernova remnant from the Crab. And that material is actually
reinvigorating the space around it with materials that new stars then pick up
as they're being born. Interviewer: Now has Hubble shown us any interesting worlds?
>>PADI: Hubble has shown us an amazing diversity of worlds, starting right here
in our own Solar System. And because it's been 25 years in orbit,
we're able to watch systems evolve on our nearest neighbor planet. We can watch
weather patterns on Mars and the clouds and the Red Spot on Jupiter.
And in just incredible detail now from the cameras that we have on board.
And we can look at the moons of Jupiter and see evidence for water vapor
shooting out there. We're seeing a diversity of worlds in our Solar System and even beyond.
>>INTERVIEWER: Now like Star Wars, Hubble is a classic and has been showing us amazing
images. What does the future hold for Hubble? >>PADI: Hubble has an incredibly
bright future, you know it's operating at the peak of its capabilities today.
It's a very exciting space to be. Astronauts serviced the telescope five
times, and they left it with very new, advanced cameras
and computer systems and power systems, so scientists have plenty of ideas
for how to use the telescope in new and exciting ways as the field of astrophysics
evolves, and we're looking forward to a future where in operation
with the new Webb telescope which is set to launch in 2018, so we'll have both these
beautiful telescopes peering at the universe at the same time and giving us new insights.
>>INTERVIEWER: Where we can we see more of Hubble's amazing images? >>PADI: So you can see the
image that we released today, all the images we spoke about, and many many more
in a huge archive of images at nasa.gov/hubble.
>>INTERVIEWER: Great, thanks so much for joining us. Padi: My pleasure.