Hubble captures the development of baby stars

Hubble captures the development of baby stars. Today’s Image of the Day from the European Space Agency features a special kind of star-forming nursery known as Free-floating Evaporating Gaseous Globules (frEGGs).

The Hubble Space Telescope caught this fascinating look at the early development of new stars when it zoomed in on a cloud that is 7,500 light-years away.  Hubble captures the development of baby stars.

The object, which is officially known as, is located in the Soul Nebula in the constellation of Cassiopeia.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versatile, renowned both as a vital research tool and as a public relations boon for astronomy. The Hubble telescope is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble and is one of NASA’s Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

The Hubble telescope was built by the United States space agency NASA with contributions from the European Space Agency. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) selects Hubble’s targets and processes the resulting data, while the Goddard Space Flight Center controls the spacecraft. Space telescopes were proposed as early as 1923. Hubble was funded in the 1970s with a proposed launch in 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the 1986 Challenger disaster. It was finally launched by Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990, but its main mirror had been ground incorrectly, resulting in spherical aberration that compromised the telescope’s capabilities. The optics were corrected to their intended quality by a servicing mission in 1993.

Image Credit: ESA

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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer