Moving from planets to stars, the telescope documented in
colorful detail the births and deaths of these bright celestial
objects. It provided visual proof that pancake-shaped dust
disks around young stars are common, suggesting that the raw
materials for planet formation are in place. The orbiting
telescope showed for the first time that jets of material
rising from embryonic stars emanate from the centers of disks
of dust and gas, thus turning what was previously merely theory
into an observed reality.
DYING IN STYLE
Hubble
delivered many stunning pictures of stellar deaths, such as
the glowing shrouds surrounding Sun-like stars (called planetary
nebulae), the mysterious rings of material around the exploding,
massive star called Supernova 1987A, and the twin lobes of
matter billowing from Eta Carinae. Ground-based images suggested
that many of these objects had simple shapes, but Hubble revealed
that their shapes are more complex.
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