WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:00.010 --> 00:00:04.010 [slate] 2 00:00:04.030 --> 00:00:08.040 [slate] 3 00:00:08.060 --> 00:00:12.200 Right so we live in a 4 00:00:12.220 --> 00:00:16.250 galaxy. It's called the Milky Way. It contains billions of stars including our 5 00:00:16.270 --> 00:00:20.350 own sun. And it looks a lot like these two galaxies here in this Hubble 6 00:00:20.370 --> 00:00:24.460 27th anniversary image that we just released a few weeks ago. 7 00:00:24.480 --> 00:00:28.630 And today we have a brand new image to show you. This is from the Frontier Fields programs. 8 00:00:28.650 --> 00:00:32.690 It's a galaxy cluster. You see thousands of galaxies in this 9 00:00:32.710 --> 00:00:36.780 image. Most of them look more like fuzzy footballs rather than spiral disks. 10 00:00:36.800 --> 00:00:40.870 And these footballs are all held together by gravity and they make up 11 00:00:40.890 --> 00:00:45.030 this massive cluster that's one of the most massive structures in the universe. 12 00:00:45.050 --> 00:00:49.060 [slate] 13 00:00:49.080 --> 00:00:53.140 Right so Hubble has it's own super vision 14 00:00:53.160 --> 00:00:57.330 and in this image it's using one of nature's superpowers called gravitational lensing 15 00:00:57.350 --> 00:01:01.380 to boost it's vision. And so every galaxy bends space 16 00:01:01.400 --> 00:01:05.430 according to Einstein's relativity and you can see light travel 17 00:01:05.450 --> 00:01:09.540 around, it follows that curvature. And when you have a massive cluster 18 00:01:09.560 --> 00:01:13.680 of galaxies, light can take multiple paths around that galaxy cluster 19 00:01:13.700 --> 00:01:17.870 You see multiple images of distant galaxies. You also see them magnified by 20 00:01:17.890 --> 00:01:21.960 gravitational lens. And as you see in this one image of 21 00:01:21.980 --> 00:01:26.070 a spiral galaxy, you see five images of that galaxy 22 00:01:26.090 --> 00:01:30.210 thanks to this gravitational lensing effect. And if you look off to the side 23 00:01:30.230 --> 00:01:34.290 you see an even more distant galaxy. This is a galaxy that's over 24 00:01:34.310 --> 00:01:38.340 13 billion light years away. So we're seeing it as it was almost at 25 00:01:38.360 --> 00:01:42.430 the beginning of time. Soon after the big bang, a few hundred million years 26 00:01:42.450 --> 00:01:46.550 after. And if you zoom out a bit you two other images 27 00:01:46.570 --> 00:01:50.730 of this same galaxy. So we see three images of this distant galaxy 28 00:01:50.750 --> 00:01:54.790 magnified thanks to gravitational lensing and a little something called dark matter. 29 00:01:54.810 --> 00:01:58.820 [slate] 30 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:02.910 Right so dark matter is this mysterious 31 00:02:02.930 --> 00:02:07.020 stuff that's all around us. We don't know what it is. It makes up most of the stuff 32 00:02:07.040 --> 00:02:11.180 in the universe. But we can't feel it and we can't see it. But we know that it's 33 00:02:11.200 --> 00:02:15.230 there in part because of this lensing effect. The lensing effect is much stronger than it would be 34 00:02:15.250 --> 00:02:19.320 without this extra mass. We also know that every galaxy 35 00:02:19.340 --> 00:02:23.420 has dark matter because when we look at these spiral galaxies we can 36 00:02:23.440 --> 00:02:27.570 measure how fast they spin and we realize that if it weren't for this 37 00:02:27.590 --> 00:02:31.630 dark matter holding them together that all the stars would fly apart. So 38 00:02:31.650 --> 00:02:35.690 dark matter is really a good thing. And you could call dark matter the guardian of the galaxy. 39 00:02:35.710 --> 00:02:39.710 [slate] 40 00:02:39.730 --> 00:02:43.830 Right so Hubble is 41 00:02:43.850 --> 00:02:47.980 27 years old and still but is still in great shape. The astronauts have gone 42 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:52.170 to service it multiple times and repair things as needed and add new instruments 43 00:02:52.190 --> 00:02:56.240 And we expect Hubble to keep obtaining great images 44 00:02:56.260 --> 00:03:00.360 like these that we can show you sometime and we expect 45 00:03:00.380 --> 00:03:04.520 Hubble to overlap with the next great space telescope 46 00:03:04.540 --> 00:03:08.570 Hubble's successor the James Webb Space Telescope. And that telescope will 47 00:03:08.590 --> 00:03:12.660 be even larger. It has a bigger mirror so it can see even more distant galaxies. 48 00:03:12.680 --> 00:03:16.760 Fainter things. And it also does that in part by 49 00:03:16.780 --> 00:03:20.910 looking in the infrared which will enable us to see the universe in a whole new 50 00:03:20.930 --> 00:03:24.970 light and we'll be able to see the first galaxies that formed in the universe. 51 00:03:24.990 --> 00:03:28.990 [slate] 52 00:03:29.010 --> 00:03:33.110 Right so these galaxy clusters 53 00:03:33.130 --> 00:03:37.310 the Frontier Fields program imaged six of them. The program's now complete 54 00:03:37.330 --> 00:03:41.380 and it's, there are amazing because they are the most massive structure ever to 55 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:45.470 form in the history of the universe. And this lensing effect is great, it helps us 56 00:03:45.490 --> 00:03:49.600 map out the dark matter. We've learned a little bit about dark matter 57 00:03:49.620 --> 00:03:53.780 but we don't know too much about it. Also acting as these lenses we're able to 58 00:03:53.800 --> 00:03:57.830 see the more distant universe more efficiently than if we didn't have this lens. 59 00:03:57.850 --> 00:04:01.920 We've now seen 97 percent of the way back to to the Big Bang. 60 00:04:01.940 --> 00:04:06.040 And we're still missing that last 3 percent that with the James Webb Space 61 00:04:06.060 --> 00:04:10.220 Telescope and also boosted by lensing we should be able to see 62 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:14.270 the first missing three percent of our cosmic history to see the first galaxies form. 63 00:04:14.290 --> 00:04:18.300 [slate] 64 00:04:18.320 --> 00:04:22.460 So to see these beautiful images and many more 65 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:26.490 of Hubble you can go to nasa.gov/hubble and you can also follow Hubble on 66 00:04:26.510 --> 00:04:28.148 Twitter @NASAHubble.