Hubble telescope zeroes in on green blob in space

[Kadie]

Hubble telescope zeroes in on green blob in space

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer – 11 mins ago


WASHINGTON – The Hubble Space Telescope got its first peek at a mysterious giant green blob in outer space and found that it's strangely alive. The bizarre glowing blob is giving birth to new stars, some only a couple million years old, in remote areas of the universe where stars don't normally form.

The blob of gas was first discovered by a Dutch school teacher in 2007 and is named Hanny's Voorwerp (HAN'-nee's-FOR'-vehrp). Voorwerp is Dutch for object.

NASA released the new Hubble photo Monday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle.

Parts of the green blob are collapsing and the resulting pressure from that is creating the stars. The stellar nurseries are outside of a normal galaxy, which is usually where stars live.

That makes these "very lonely newborn stars" that are "in the middle of nowhere," said Bill Keel, the University of Alabama astronomer who examined the blob.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110111/ap_on_sc/us_sci_space_blob_3



This handout photo provided by NASA, taken April 12, 2010 by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows an unusual, ghostly green blob of gas appears to float near a normal-looking spiral galaxy. NASA released Monday the Hubble Space Telescope’s first picture of the mysterious giant glowing green blob of gas called Hanny’s Voorwerp. The blob is the size of our Milky Way galaxy and is 650 million light years away. Each light year is about 6 trillion miles. The blob was discovered in 2007 by Dutch school teacher Hanny van Arkel.« Read less (AP Photo/Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute)

[Rex]

1. They better watch who they are calling a green blob!!!

That is a pure star maker!

[somone]

2. How it was formed: