Witch's Broom studied by Hubble

Veil Nebula Pierced by Hubble's Gaze

Saw a post about this over at toomanytribbles. The Veil Nebula (aka: 'The Witch's Broom') has been studied in detail by the Hubble Space telescope:

...The Hubble close-ups reveal the rope-like filaments of gas in the nebula, which resulted from enormous amounts of dusty debris plowing into gaseous surroundings. Thicker filaments of material result from viewing the supernova's shock wave edge-on, while more wispy and diffuse views correspond to a face-on view of other parts of the shock wave from Earth...

Check out the link for a number of great photos.

Energy Dark Energy in the Young Universe

NASA's Hubble Finds Evidence for Dark Energy in the Young Universe

Einstein is right again!

Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that dark energy is not a new constituent of space, but rather has been present for most of the universe's history. Dark energy is a mysterious repulsive force that causes the universe to expand at an increasing rate.

Investigators used Hubble to find that dark energy was already boosting the expansion rate of the universe as long as nine billion years ago. This picture of dark energy is consistent with Albert Einstein's prediction of nearly a century ago that a repulsive form of gravity emanates from empty space.