It has been 400 years since Galileo Galilei first walked out into a field and trained his telescope upon the heavens. To celebrate this extraordinary anniversary, a special series of Hubblecast podcasts is devoted to the telescope — the historical development, the scientific importance, the technological breakthroughs, and also the people behind this ground-breaking invention, their triumphs and their failures. In this first chapter of the Special Edition of Hubblecast, Dr. J takes you on a whirl-wind tour of the invention of the telescope as you meet inventors from Hans Lipperhey to Galileo Galilei to Christiaan Huygens. Who invented the telescope? What was it first used for? How did early telescopes evolve? Sit back and enjoy the view! Read more and download high-resolution versions of this video on: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/html/hubblecast17a.html

• 7/29/08
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For astronomers, Omega Centauri has been an outcast amongst globular clusters for a long time. A new result obtained by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini Observatory provides a surprising explanation for Omega Centauri’s peculiarities. Credit: ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen), R. Gendler Narration: Dr. Robert Fosbury Design: Martin Kornmesser Web Technical Support: Lars Holm Nielsen Raquel Yumi Shida Cinematographer: Peter Rixner (www.perix.de) Script: Lars Lindberg Christensen, Raquel Yumi Shida Director: Lars Lindberg Christensen Download this episode on: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/html/heic0809a.html

• 5/28/08
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By scrutinising the Hubble Ultra Deep field - the deepest image of the sky ever made - the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope have joined forces to discover nine of the smallest, faintest, most compact galaxies ever observed in the distant Universe. Read more on: http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0714.html

• 5/27/08
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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a spectacular image of NGC 3603, a giant nebula hosting one of the most prominent massive young clusters in the Milky Way. This is a splendid location for continued studies of stellar birth in star forming regions. Read more on: http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0715.html

• 5/27/08
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Hubble has delivered an unrivalled snapshot of the nearby barred spiral galaxy NGC 1672. This remarkable image provides a high-definition view of the galaxy's large bar, its fields of star-forming clouds and its dark bands of interstellar dust.

• 5/27/08
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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope celebrates its 17th birthday with one of the largest panoramic images ever taken. The violent stellar fireworks of the Carina Nebula. Read more on : http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0707.html

• 5/27/08
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New Hubble observations of the massive globular cluster NGC 2808 provide evidence that it has three generations of stars instead of one as current theories predict. Read more on: http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0708.html

• 5/27/08
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• Votes: 2

An international team of astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a ghostly ring of dark matter formed long ago during a colossal collision between two galaxy clusters. This is the first time that dark matter has been found with a distribution that differs substantially from the distribution of ordinary matter. Read more on: http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0709.html

• 5/27/08
• Comments: 1
• Votes: 1