A spectacular new Hubble image reveals a mysterious hole in a nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE, 2 NOVEMBER 2021
Why does this beautiful emission nebula have a gigantic hole in it? With a width of more than 250 lightyears, the dark ‘superbubble’ in N44, located 160,000 lightyears from Earth in the constellation of Dorado, is still puzzling astronomers.
The hole, glowing with the intense ultraviolet light from a region littered with hot young stars, seems likely to have been carved out by the outflow of superfast, broiling stellar winds from the massive blue-white stars at its centre. Measurements of wind velocities in the region, however, don’t seem to bear this out. Another trigger may be a succession of central stars exploding in the last few million years, the resulting shockwaves blowing out the surrounding gas.
Remnants of one supernova have been detected and strong X-ray emissions seem to confirm an explosive past. The discovery that stars inside and outside the superbubble are five million years apart in age only adds to the enigma.
Graveyard of galaxies
ALMA, 2 NOVEMBER 2021
Violent scuffles with the neighbours, hurtling at speeds of up to several million kilometres per hour and ploughing through million-degree plasma all contribute to the punishing, inhospitable environment that kills galaxies, new research has concluded. The VERTICO (Virgo Environment Traced in Carbon Monoxide Survey) study of 51 galaxies in the Virgo Cluster found that environmental factors in the Universe can be so spectacularly violent that entire galaxies can stop forming stars, creating a galaxy graveyard.
Here comes the Sun
SOHO, 28 OCTOBER 2021
Solar activity is now kicking up a gear as we head towards the next solar maximum in the new cycle. Spectacular flares have been observed, including a massive X1-class flare that triggered a series of coronal mass ejections zooming towards Earth, sparking the most impressive aurora seen in years.
To watch a sequence of eruptions, as captured over eight days by SOHO’s coronagraph telescopes, visit https://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2021_11_04
Living on the edge
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE, 15 NOVEMBER 2021
Handsome near-edge-on galaxy UGC 11537 may be 230 million lightyears away in Aquila, but Hubble’s new infrared and visible wavelength image of it clearly shows tightly wound arms of dark dusty clouds and bright ribbons of stars. The two most prominent stars, however, don’t belong to it: they are interlopers from our own galaxy that have crept into the foreground.
Worlds apart
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE, 18 NOVEMBER 2021
In this family portrait of the gaseous outer planets, Jupiter has several new dark red storm cyclone ‘barges’, while Saturn reveals the blue south pole of its southern hemisphere’s winter. Uranus displays a bright northern pole, while its other half sits in a 21-year-long, dark winter, and on Neptune we still see the giant dark spot that surprised observers by dodging its demise earlier this year.
Filament eruption from active region 12887 – SOLAR DYNAMICS OBSERVATORY, 28 October 2021 – Image credit: NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE and HMI science teams 
Small black hole detected in NGC1850 – VERY LARGE TELESCOPE/HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE, 11 NOVEMBER 2021 – Credit: ESO, NASA/ESA/R. Gilmozzi/S. Casertano, J. Schmidt 
Icy cliff on Mars – EXOMARS, 19 NOVEMBER 2021 – Credit: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO 
Overlapping spiral galaxies NGC 3314a and b – VERY LARGE TELESCOPE, 8 NOVEMBER 2021 – Credit: ESO/Iodice et al. 
Spiral galaxy NGC 4254 in the Virgo Cluster – ALMA/HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE, 2 NOVEMBER 2021 – Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. Dagnello (NRAO)
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