EMBARGOED UNTIL: 1:00 a.m. (EST) January 24, 2000

Hubble Reopens Eye on the Universe

In its first glimpse of the heavens following the successful December 1999 servicing mission, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a majestic view of a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a dying, Sun-like star. This stellar relic, first spied by William Herschel in 1787, is nicknamed the "Eskimo" Nebula (NGC 2392) because, when viewed through ground-based telescopes, it resembles a face surrounded by a fur parka. In this Hubble telescope image, the "fur parka" is really a disk of material embellished with a ring of comet-shaped objects, with their tails streaming away from the central, dying star. The Eskimo's "face" also contains some fascinating details. Although this bright central region resembles a ball of twine, it is, in reality, a bubble of material being blown into space by the central star's intense "wind" of high-speed material.

Credits: NASA, A. Fruchter and the ERO Team (STScI)

Images are available on the Internet at: http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2000/07 http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2000/08 and via links in http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html and http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html

Higher resolution digital versions (300 dpi JPEG and TIFF) are available at: http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2000/07/pr-photos.html and http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2000/08/pr-photos.html