* Astronomy

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RE: Galaxy Evolution Explorer

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10th Anniversary of the Galaxy Evolution Explorer launch in 2003

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NASA Lends Galaxy Evolution Explorer to Caltech

NASA is lending the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, where the spacecraft will continue its exploration of the cosmos. In a first-of-a-kind move for NASA, a Space Act Agreement was signed May 14 so the university soon can resume spacecraft operations and data management for the mission using private funds.
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NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer in Standby Mode

NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, or Galex, was placed in standby mode today as engineers prepare to end mission operations, nearly nine years after the telescope's launch. The spacecraft is scheduled to be decommissioned -- taken out of service -- later this year. The mission extensively mapped large portions of the sky with sharp ultraviolet vision, cataloguing millions of galaxies spanning 10 billion years of cosmic time.
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NASA Telescope Ferrets Out Planet-Hunting Targets

Astronomers have come up with a new way of identifying close, faint stars with NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite. The technique should help in the hunt for planets that lie beyond our solar system, because nearby, hard-to-see stars could very well be home to the easiest-to-see alien planets.
The glare of bright, shining stars has frustrated most efforts at visualizing distant worlds. So far, only a handful of distant planets, or exoplanets, have been directly imaged. Small, newborn stars are less blinding, making the planets easier to see, but the fact that these stars are dim means they are hard to find in the first place. Fortunately, the young stars emit more ultraviolet light than their older counterparts, which makes them conspicuous to the ultraviolet-detecting Galaxy Evolution Explorer.
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NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer Mission marks its sixth anniversary studying galaxies beyond our Milky Way through its sensitive ultraviolet telescope, the only such far-ultraviolet detector in space.
The mission studies the shape, brightness, size and distance of galaxies across 10 billion years of cosmic history, giving scientists a wealth of data to help us better understand the origins of the universe. One such object is pictured here, the galaxy NGC598, more commonly known as M33.
In these side-by-side images of M33, the ultraviolet image on the left was taken by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, while the ultraviolet and infrared image on the right is a blend of the mission's M33 image and another taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. M33, one of our closest galactic neighbours, is about 2.9 million light-years away in the constellation Triangulum, part of what's known as our Local Group of galaxies.

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GALEX

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Since its launch five years ago, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer has photographed hundreds of millions of galaxies in ultraviolet light. M106 is one of those galaxies, and from 22 light years away, it strikes a pose in blue and gold for this new commemorative portrait.
The galaxy's extended arms are the blue filaments that curve around its edge, creating its outer disk. Tints of blue in M106's arms reveal hot, young massive stars. Traces of gold toward the centre show an older stellar population and indicate the presence of obscuring dust.

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NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer is celebrating its fourth year in space with some of M81's "hottest" stars.
In a new ultraviolet image, the magnificent M81 spiral galaxy is shown at the centre. The orbiting observatory spies the galaxy's "sizzling young starlets" as wisps of bluish-white swirling around a central golden glow. The tints of gold at M81's centre come from a "senior citizen" population of smouldering stars.

"This is a spectacular view of M81. When we proposed to observe this galaxy with GALEX we hoped to see globular clusters, open clusters, and young stars...this view is everything that we were hoping for" - Dr. John Huchra, of the Harvard Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.

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Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/J. Huchra (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)

The image is one of thousands gathered so far by GALEX, which launched April 28, 2003. This mission uses ultraviolet wavelengths to measure the history of star formation 80 percent of the way back to the Big Bang.
The large fluffy bluish-white material to the left of M81 is a neighbouring galaxy called Holmberg IX. This galaxy is practically invisible to the naked human eye. However, it is illuminated brilliantly in GALEX's wide ultraviolet eyes. Its ultraviolet colours show that it is actively forming young stars. The bluish-white fuzz in the space surrounding M81 and Holmberg IX is new star formation triggered by gravitational interactions between the two galaxies. Huchra notes that the active star formation in Holmberg IX is a surprise, and says that more research needs to be done in light of the new findings from GALEX.

"Some astronomers suspect that the galaxy Holmberg IX is the result of a galactic interaction between M81 and another neighbouring galaxy M82. This particular galaxy is especially important because there are a lot of galaxies like Holmberg IX around our Milky Way galaxy. By understanding how Holmberg IX came to be, we hope to understand how all the little galaxies surrounding the Milky Way developed" - Dr. John Huchra.

"Four years after GALEX's launch, the spacecraft is performing magnificently. The mission results have been simply amazing as it helps us to unlock the secrets of galaxies, the building blocks of our universe" - Kerry Erickson, GALEX project manager.

M81 and Holberg IX are located approximately 12 million light-years away in the northern constellation Ursa Major. In addition to leading the GALEX observations of M81, Huchra and his team also took observations of the region with NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes. By combining all these views of M81, Huchra hopes to gain a better understanding about how M81 has developed into the spiral galaxy we see today.
The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, leads the Galaxy Evolution Explorer mission and is responsible for science operations and data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena, manages the mission and built the science instrument. The mission was developed under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Centre, Greenbelt, Md. Researchers from South Korea and France collaborated on this mission.

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