© 2015 Universal Uclick Revealing the Wonders of the Universe from The Mini Page © 2015 Universal Uclick Happy 25th Birthday, Hubble! On April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Hubble’s future Telescope was launched into orbit. Hubble is at its best right now. It has transformed what we know NASA expects it will keep making about outer space, from our own solar great scientific discoveries until at system to the edges of the universe. least 2020, and hopefully beyond that. It has shown us some of the first But when its instruments start to fail, galaxies ever formed and helped us NASA no longer has a way to fix them. learn the age of the universe. Hubble was designed to work hand- Hubble is able to take awesome in-hand with the space shuttle, but images because it orbits above the shuttles are no longer flying. Newer Earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere vehicles such as Orion are not being can blur images taken from Earth and designed to dock with Hubble to block the light from space. perform upgrades. Hubble images of stardust and But for now, Hubble is still galaxies have united our planet in photo courtesy NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScIAURA) discovering wonders. For example, wonder. Stars are forming inside these towering it recently found strong evidence of The Mini Page talked with a senior columns of gas and dust in the Eagle an underground saltwater sea on project scientist at NASA to learn Nebula. This site, named the Pillars of Creation, is one of the Hubble’s best- Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon. more about this amazing telescope. known images. Hubble has helped us Experts believe it has more water than understand how stars are born and how all the water on the Earth’s surface. they die. Hubble’s past NASA has sent astronauts to service the Hubble five times since its launch. The first images Hubble sent back were blurry, and scientists realized the photo courtesy NASA telescope’s main mirror had a flaw. Hubble was the first major optical, or art courtesy Northrop Grumman visual light, telescope to be launched into The first service mission, in 1993, In 2018, NASA plans to launch Hubble’s space. It was named after astronomer was to install lenses to correct the successor, the James Webb Telescope. Edwin Hubble. It orbits the Earth every blurriness. Astronauts last serviced This infrared telescope will be able to 97 minutes and is about the size of a look even farther into space and time than schoolbus. It is a joint project of NASA Hubble in 2009. They installed new Hubble. Scientists hope both telescopes’ and the European Space Agency, or ESA. instruments and batteries. working lives will overlap. ®

from The Mini Page © 2015 Universal Uclick Far, Far Away Expanding universe Looking back in time In 1925, Edwin Hubble observed Knowing how fast the universe is that most galaxies appear to be expanding helps astronomers figure moving away from all the other out its age. Information from Hubble galaxies. This is because the and other telescopes offers strong universe is stretching out, or evidence that the universe formed expanding. about 13.8 billion years ago. Astronomers recently discovered, Hubble has taken pictures of some with the Hubble and other of the first galaxies formed after the telescopes, that this expansion is Big Bang. These infant galaxies were actually speeding up. The entire born only about 400 million years

universe is expanding faster now photo courtesy NASA/ESA/S. Beckwith(STScI) and The HUDF Team after the universe burst into being. than in the past. This image shows close-ups of Hubble is seeing light from No one knows what is pushing the galaxies from Hubble’s Ultra Deep Field galaxies as they existed 13 billion universe out like this. Scientists call observations. Some are spiral-shaped, years ago. In other words, it is seeing like our own Milky Way galaxy. Others the mysterious force dark energy. are more round. The cross-shaped objects more than 13 billion light- Knowledge of the expanding object is a nearby star in the field. Some years away. It is seeing galaxies universe helps prove the Big Bang galaxies are very distant, with their light when they were babies. theory. About 14 billion years ago, taking billions of years to reach us. The farthest galaxies are less all the energy in the universe was Some of Hubble’s images show the oldest well-formed than galaxies closer to galaxies soon after they were born, when jammed into a tiny spot smaller than they were still taking shape. They look Earth. They are usually smaller. As a pinpoint. Then all of a sudden, like links in a chain or like toothpicks. time passes, galaxies often merge, the energy burst out as space began The closer galaxies have had more time forming even larger galaxies. Hubble to expand super fast. Some of the to form the familiar spiral shapes. From is seeing pictures of these galaxies the ground, the Deep Field region of energy changed into matter. space looks mostly empty. Hubble has when they were too young to have discovered 10,000 galaxies in this area. merged.

from The Mini Page © 2015 Universal Uclick from The Mini Page © 2015 Universal Uclick TM Hubble Ready Resources S E C A P S E P O C S E L E T The Mini Page provides ideas for websites, B T B B H L T E N A L P O X E books or other resources that will help you learn Basset H A A I L O O L R E D N O W S Brown’s more about this week’s topics. U W N R G A L R A L U B E N Y On the Web: Try B E V G S K C E B H T R A E S • hubble25th.org B B E G A X V K S I L S A G T • nasa.gov/hubble ’n’ L B S E I X A L A G T L A F E At the library: Find E T H G I L T S U D R A T S M • “Eye on the Universe: The Incredible Hubble Space R A L O S R E M O N O R T S A Telescope” by Michael D. Cole Words that remind us of the Hubble Space Telescope are hidden in the • “Space, Stars, and the Beginning of Time: What the block below. Some words are hidden backward or diagonally. See if you can find: AGE, ASTRONOMER, BIG, BANG, BLACK, EARTH, EXOPLANET, Hubble Telescope Saw” by Elaine Scott FAR, GALAXIES, GAS, HOLES, HUBBLE, LIGHT, NEBULA, ORBIT, SOLAR, • “Space Exploration” by Carole Stott SPACE, STARDUST, STARS, SYSTEM, TELESCOPE, WEBB, WONDER. ®

TM Mini Spy TM Rookie Cookie’s Recipe Mini Spy and Basset Brown love to look at the Nutty Creamy Dream stars. See if you can find: q exclamation mark q comb You’ll need: q feather q needle q hamburger q fork q mug • 2 cups light coffee ice cream, softened • 1 1/4 cups crumbled peanut brittle q letter O q spoon q strawberry q cherry q pig • 1/2 cup chocolate fudge sauce q ladder q heart q word MINI q arrow q kite • 1 cup whipped cream or topping q tooth q pencil q muffin q knife q sock What to do: q sailboat q snake q number 2 q man in the moon 1. In a large bowl, combine ice cream and 1 cup of peanut brittle. Mix well. Refreeze until firm. 2. Warm fudge sauce in microwave. Spoon ice cream mixture into bowls and top with warm sauce, whipped topping and remaining peanut brittle. Serves 4. You will need an adult’s help with this recipe. Adapted from “The Robin Takes 5 Cookbook for Busy Families” with permission from Andrews McMeel Publishing (andrewsmcmeel.com). from The Mini Page © 2015 Universal Uclick Meet Matt Baron Matt Baron is a rock singer and songwriter and the leader of the band Future Hits. He is also an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher. The band’s latest album for kids is “Today Is Forever/ Hoy es para siempre.” Each song on the album is performed in English and in Spanish. It comes out in May. Matt said: “One day I came home from school, and there was a sweet electric guitar sitting on our dining room table. I was 6 at the time and was in complete,

photo by Jeff Sciortino joyous shock.” Matt’s dad is a jazz musician, and the guitar was a loaner from one of his dad’s friends. He taught Matt to play. He started taking Spanish when he was in fifth grade. In college, he studied in Spain and lived in Ecuador as part of a program for teachers. He and his band help artists with developmental or mental disabilities. They also help with a music workshop for underserved youth.

from The Mini Page © 2015 Universal Uclick from The Mini Page © 2015 Universal Uclick

from The Mini Page © 2015 Universal Uclick from The Mini Page © 2015 Universal Uclick TM TM Mighty Natoya Goule Funny’s Mini Jokes Goldie The island nation of Jamaica has been home to many All the following jokes have something in common. Can you Goodsport’s sprinters — runners who excel at relatively short-distance guess the common theme or category? Supersport races, such as the 100, 200 and 400 meters. Natoya Goule, on the other hand, is a middle-distance runner in the 800 meters (twice around a standard running track). Shelly: How do astronaut lambs travel? Natoya attended Louisiana State University in 2013, Sam: In spacesheeps! where she claimed NCAA titles in the 800 meters during both the 2013 indoor and outdoor track seasons. When she transferred to Clemson University in South Carolina, Stuart: How do you park at the space station? Natoya had to sit out the entire 2014 season by rule. Sue: At a parking meteor! By 2015, Natoya was back on the track. At the NCAA Height: 5-3 Indoor Track & Field Championships, she set a meet Age: 24 record in the 800 meters to claim her third NCAA title. Steve: How do you organize a flight to the Hometown: It was also the first individual indoor championship by a Clarendon, Space Station? Jamaica Clemson female athlete. This spring, Natoya will look to reclaim her outdoor title, too! Sonny: You need to plan-et carefully! ®

from The Mini Page © 2015 Universal Uclick Discoveries Far and Near Black holes With the Hubble telescope, astronomers were able to prove that supermassive black holes are at the centers of galaxies. Early in its mission, Hubble detected a cloud of gas rotating very quickly around the core of a galaxy. The only thing that would keep that photo courtesy NASA, ESA speeding gas in orbit was the gravity Hubble took the first visible-light image of an exoplanet, Fomalhaut b. It orbits from a supermassive black hole. the star Fomalhaut (FOME-uh-lot) in the The black hole was several billion constellation Piscis Australis. Fomalhaut b is in a disk of stardust orbiting the star times the mass of our sun, but photo courtesy NASA, ESA, R. O’Connell (University of Virginia), F. Paresce (National Institute for Astrophysics, Bologna, Italy), E. Young (Universities Space Research (in center, but not visible in this image). Association/Ames Research Center), the WFC3 Science Oversight Committee, and the squeezed into a space only about as Hubble Heritage Team big as our solar system. This find, Milky Way discoveries Giant clusters of young stars shine in in galaxy M87, was the evidence Hubble has made many discoveries the star-forming nebula in the Carina constellation. astronomers had been looking for. in our own Milky Way galaxy. For example, it has detected flattened Discoveries in our backyard disks of stardust orbiting newborn Astronomers have also pointed stars. It found evidence that planets Hubble toward comets, asteroids and form in these dusty disks. planets in our own solar system. Its It has confirmed the existence of many discoveries include: unknown many exoplanets, or planets outside moons orbiting Pluto, aurorae on our solar system. It is analyzing planets besides Earth, and clues their atmospheres and has detected about how our solar system began and planets were formed.

photo courtesy J. A. Biretta et al., Hubble Heritage Team (STScI /AURA), NASA water vapor within some of them. Black holes are so massive that their It is helping us learn if exoplanets Over the gravity sucks in everything that is very resemble the ones in our solar system. years, close, including light. Material farther Hubble out can orbit the black hole very fast. The images However, sometimes strong magnetic Horsehead have fields form around the black hole. They Nebula in the shown that catch gases near the black hole and push constellation Jupiter’s them away. This gas jet is being pushed Orion stands giant from the black hole in the M87 galaxy. out against storm, the the stars Great Red The Mini Page thanks Dr. Jennifer J. when shot in Spot, is Wiseman, Hubble Space Telescope senior infrared. A growing project scientist, NASA, for help with this nebula is a photo courtesy NASA, ESA, and A. Simon smaller. issue. cloud of gas and dust in Next week, The Mini Page is about horse Look through your newspaper for pictures photo courtesy NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team space. racing. (STScI/AURA) and stories about outer space. The Mini Page Staff Betty Debnam - Founding Editor and Editor at Large Lisa Tarry - Managing Editor Lucy Lien - Associate Editor Wendy Daley - Artist