Hubble's spectacular view of gravity-defying threads of gas in a galaxy far away

They may look like splashes of colourful paint, but these pictures were actually taken by the Hubble space telescope of a galaxy 235 million light years from Earth.

Scientists at Cambridge University say the spectacular images will help them to unravel a 30-year-old space mystery.

They are the first-ever detailed images of 'filaments' - delicate threads of gas that emerge from the centre of a distant elliptical galaxy called NGC 1275.

These images from Hubble have allowed researchers to observe the filamentary structure in unprecedented detail

Each thread has around one million times the mass of our own Sun. The structures are only 200 light-years wide, often surprisingly straight, and extend for up to 20,000 light-years.

Astronomers have long puzzled over how these fragile, 100-million-year-old structures have survived the rigours of space, but were unable to see them clearly enough to carry out effective research.

Dr Carolin Crawford, one of the authors of a report published in Nature today, said: ‘The images we got from the ground were always clouded by the Earth's atmosphere.

‘The new ones from the Hubble are crystal clear, and we've been able to take accurate measurements and study the composition of the filaments.

For years astronomers have puzzled over how these beautiful structures have survived

‘If something is very thin then they are inherently very fragile. What we are now learning is exactly how fragile, and how strong a magnetic force is required to support them.’

The filaments reach out from their home galaxy into the Perseus Cluster - described as a 'hostile, high-energy environment with a strong, tidal pull of gravity at its core'.

These combined forces should have ripped apart the filaments in a very short period of time, causing them to collapse into stars. Instead, they have withstood their inhospitable climes for more than 100 million years.The images show a number of filaments, vast but delicate threads of gas

Scientists decide Pluto’s no longer a planet

This lineup shows the 12 planets that were proposed last week, with a wedge of the sun at far left. Ceres, Pluto, Charon and 2003 UB313 are barely visible. Now Charon will continue to be considered Pluto's satellite, and the three other worlds will be dubbed "dwarf planets" rather than full-fledged planets. The planets are drawn to scale, but without correct relative distances.
Capping years of intense debate, astronomers resolved Thursday to demote Pluto in a wholesale redefinition of planethood that is being billed as a victory of scientific reasoning over historic and cultural influences. But the decision is already being hotly debated.

Officially, Pluto is no longer a planet.

"Pluto is dead," said Mike Brown, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology who spoke with reporters via a teleconference while monitoring the vote. The decision also means a Pluto-sized object that Brown discovered will not be called a plane.
"Pluto is not a planet," Brown said. "There are finally, officially, eight planets in the solar system."

The vote involved just 424 astronomers who remained for the last day of a meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague.

"I'm embarrassed for astronomy. Less than 5 percent of the world's astronomers voted," said Alan Stern, leader of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto and a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute.

"This definition stinks, for technical reasons," Stern told Space.com. He expects the astronomy community to overturn the decision. Other astronomers criticized the definition as ambiguous.