Hubble continues to provide exciting images of space despite the arrival of the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA and the European Space Agency have released a Hubble image of the Arp Madur 417-391 collision. galaxy About 670 million light-years away, a gravitational tug-of-war has created a strange ring shape, with the nuclei of two galaxies relatively close together and the stellar “columns” forming a circle.
The telescope captured the merger with the Advanced Camera for Surveys, which helped reveal strange galaxies and even dark matter. Researchers are using the orbits to catalog follow-up observations for the brand new James Webb Telescope, which has sometimes been used in conjunction with Hubble to study space objects, Engadget reports.
You may not see HST driving these breakthroughs for much longer. The telescope has suffered a series of system failures in recent years and is expected to descend to Earth as early as 2030 if nothing is done.
While NASA and SpaceX consider raising Hubble’s orbit to keep it operating, longevity isn’t guaranteed, and this galactic collapse could mark one of the telescope’s final migrations, even if years remain in space at the observatory.
