April's Stellar Space Pictures
(Inside Science) -- This month, astronomers discovered firsts in many categories. The most notable was the first ever picture of a black hole event horizon. Others include the first type of molecule ever formed, and the first sighting of a scene straight out of science fiction found more than 3,000 light-years away.
This month, astronomers released the first ever image of something previously thought unimageable -- a black hole event horizon. A network of radio antennae around the globe, known as the Event Horizon Telescope, came together to generate the picture from tons of observational data. Above is a wide-field view that NASA's X-ray observatory Chandra captured in coordination with the Event Horizon Telescope. It shows where the black hole is located at the center of a galaxy 60 million light-years from Earth known as Messier 87. (NASA/CXC/Villanova University/J. Neilsen)
In a galaxy far, far away -- approximately 3,340 light years -- lies Kepler-47, a planetary system in which the planets, like the fictional planet Tatooine in Star Wars, orbit two stars. Astronomers just discovered a third planet circling the two suns, making Kepler-47 the only known two-star system with more than two planets. Above is an artist's rendition of the two suns and their three planets. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)
This artist's impression depicts another black hole, but this one sprays light-speed plasma clouds into space. The rapidly swinging jets cause the black hole to spin like a top, spewing the plasma in different directions. The dramatic action is 8,000 light-years from Earth, in the binary system V404 Cygni. (ICRAR)
On April 24, 1990, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was launched. Its mission was to provide spectacular views of space for science and the public alike, which it has done now for 29 years and counting. For Hubble's 29th anniversary image, the telescope photographed the elegant hourglass figure of the Southern Crab Nebula to mark the occasion. This binary star system is one of the many stellar objects that the telescope has helped reveal in stunning detail over the years. (NASA, ESA, and STScI)
Above is an illustration of the first type of molecule ever formed in the universe: helium hydride. It was detected using the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) this month. Scientists believe that, after the Big Bang, helium and hydrogen combined to make this molecule for the first time. However, it remained undetected until now, when the SOFIA observatory found it 3,000 light-years away in a planetary nebula called NGC 7027. This discovery confirms a key part of our understanding of the chemistry during the early universe. (NASA/SOFIA/L. Proudfit/D. Rutter)
