Newscenter Update: Hubble Sees a Star 'Inflating' a Giant Bubble

April 21, 2016 Get larger image formats   Find the entire Hubble News archive, image galleries, and much more at hubblesite.org Stay Connected   Hubble Sees a Star 'Inflating' a Giant Bubble Twenty-six candles grace NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's birthday cake this year, and now one giant space "balloon" will add to the festivities. Just in time for the 26th anniversary of Hubble's launch on April 24, 1990, the telescope has photographed an enormous, balloon-like bubble being blown into space by a super-hot, massive star. Astronomers trained the iconic telescope on this colorful feature, called the Bubble Nebula, or NGC 7635. The bubble is 7 light-years across — about one-and-a-half times the distance from our sun to its nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri. The Bubble Nebula lies 7,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. RELEASE LINKS: See full release More Images Video AstroFiles Fast Facts This news release and its supporting materials are permanently archived at: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2016/13/ You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list, which sends notices in HTML whenever there is a new Hubble Space Telescope image, product, or news update. If you would like to unsubscribe or change your email preferences, please go to: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/hubble_on_the_go/inbox_astronomy/