Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2016

SPACE CHRONICLES Abell S1063, the final frontier F ifty years ago Captain Kirk and the crew of the starship Enter- prise began their journey into space — the final frontier. Now, as the newest Star Trek film hits cinemas, the NASA/ESA Hubble space tele- scope is also exploring new frontiers, observing distant galaxies in the gal- axy cluster Abell S1063 as part of the Frontier Fields programme. The Hubble Frontier Fields is a three- year, 840-orbit programme which will yield the deepest views of the Uni- verse to date, combining the power of Hubble with the gravitational am- plification of light around six differ- ent galaxy clusters to explore more distant regions of space than could otherwise be seen. Space... the final frontier. These are the stories of the Hubble Space Tele- scope. Its continuing mission, to ex- plore strange new worlds and to boldly look where no telescope has looked before. The newest target of Hubble’s mis- sion is the distant galaxy cluster Abell S1063, potentially home to billions of strange new worlds. This view of the cluster, which can be seen in the centre of the image, shows it as it was four billion years ago. But Abell S1063 allows us to ex- plore a time even earlier than this, where no telescope has really looked before. The huge mass of the cluster distorts and magnifies the light from galaxies that lie behind it due to an effect called gravitational lensing. by NASA A bell S1063, a galaxy cluster, was observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope as part of the Frontier Fields programme. The huge mass of the cluster acts as a cosmic magnifying glass and enlarges even more distant galaxies, so they become bright enough for Hubble to see. [NASA, ESA, and J. Lotz (STScI)] This allows Hubble to see galaxies that would otherwise be too faint to observe and makes it possible to search for, and study, the very first generation of galaxies in the Uni- verse. “Fascinating”, as a famous Vulcan might say. The first results from the data on Abell S1063 prom-