In a world where you have just one chance to save a dying explorer, the only hope is a space shuttle mission …(said in my deepest, most dramatic voice….) Enjoy this movie-like trailer for the upcoming NOVA special on PBS stations in the US, “Hubble’s Amazing Rescue.” It looks like a great show, providing the chance to re-live the exciting 12-day Hubble Servicing Mission 4 and its five pressure-filled spacewalks. Hubble’s Amazing Rescue premieres Tuesday, October 16th at 8PM ET/PT on PBS. Find out more about the show and check local listings for your area here.
This composite shows the two ram pressure stripping galaxies NGC 4522 and NGC 4402. Credit: NASA & ESA
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Strange forces of nature are stripping away gas from galaxies in the Virgo cluster. An extremely hot X-ray emitting gas known as the intra-cluster medium permeates the regions between galaxies inside clusters and, as fast moving galaxies whip through this medium, strong winds tear through galaxies distorting their shape and even halting star formation with a process known as “ram pressure stripping.” Hubble spied two galaxies “losing it” to these forces.
Ram pressure is the drag force that results when something moves through a fluid — much like the wind you feel in your face when bicycling, even on a still day — and occurs in this context as galaxies orbiting about the centre of the cluster move through the intra-cluster medium, which then sweeps out gas from within the galaxies.
The two galaxies — NGC 4522 and NGC 4402 – were imaged by the old Advanced Camera for Surveys on Hubble before it suffered from a power failure in 2007. Astronauts on Servicing Mission 4 in May 2009 were able to restore ACS during their 13-day mission.
This image shows NGC 4522 within the context of the Virgo Cluster. Credit: NASA, ESA and the Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)
The spiral galaxy NGC 4522 is located some 60 million light-years away from Earth and it is a spectacular example of a spiral galaxy currently being stripped of its gas content. Astronomers estimate the galaxy is moving at more than 10 million kilometers per hour, and its rapid motion within the cluster results in strong winds across the galaxy as the gas within is left behind. A number of newly formed star clusters that developed in the stripped gas can be seen in the Hubble image.
The image provides a vivid view of the ghostly gas being forced out of it. Bright blue pockets of new star formation can be seen to the right and left of centre. The image is sufficiently deep to show distant background galaxies.
The image of NGC 4402 also highlights some telltale signs of ram pressure stripping such as the curved, or convex, appearance of the disc of gas and dust, a result of the forces exerted by the heated gas. Light being emitted by the disc backlights the swirling dust that is being swept out by the gas. Studying ram pressure stripping helps astronomers better understand the mechanisms that drive the evolution of galaxies, and how the rate of star formation is suppressed in very dense regions of the Universe like clusters.
Hubble images of the Omega Centauri starfield from 2002, left, and from 2009, right.
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“This marks a new beginning for Hubble,” said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at today’s press briefing at NASA Headquarters to showcase the images from Hubble following Servicing Mission 4. “The telescope was given an extreme makeover and is now significantly more powerful than ever — well equipped to last well into the next decade.”
But how much more powerful is Hubble? Are there any discernible differences between the old images from Hubble and the new ones released today? You better believe it. Above is the star field of Omega Centauri before (2002) and after (2009).
See more comparisons below.
Butterfly Nebula before and after. Credit: NASA/Hubble team. Collage by Stuart Atkinson
Here’s an earlier image of the Butterfly Nebula (NGC 6302, or the Bug Nebula) with the one released today. (Thanks to Stu Atkinson for the comparison image.)
Scientists at today’s briefing said the new instruments are more sensitive to light and therefore will significantly improve Hubble’s observing efficiency. The space telescope is now able to complete observations in a fraction of the time that was needed with earlier generations of Hubble instruments.
Stephan's Quintet from 2000 (left) and 2009 (right) Credit: NASA/ESA Hubble Team
And here’s Stephan’s Quintet from 2000 (left) and 2009 (right).
The Butterfly Nebula, as see by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
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Hubble is back! The wait is over and here are the new Hubble telescope images from the newly refurbished space telescope. Above is an image taken by the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), a new camera aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, installed by NASA astronauts in May 2009, during the servicing mission to upgrade and repair the 19-year-old Hubble telescope. This is a planetary nebula, catalogued as NGC 6302, but more popularly called the Bug Nebula or the Butterfly Nebula.
NGC 6302 lies within our Milky Way galaxy, roughly 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. The glowing gas is the star’s outer layers, expelled over about 2,200 years. The “butterfly” stretches for more than two light-years, which is about half the distance from the Sun to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri.
And there’s more!
Omega Centauri. Credits: NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
This one is absolutely awesome! This zoom into the globular star cluster Omega Centauri converges onto the Hubble Wide Field Camera 3’s panoramic view of 100,000 stars lying in the center of the cluster. The stars vary in age and change color as they get older. Most of them are middle-aged, yellowish stars like our Sun. But as they near the end of their lives, they balloon into red giants, and later still, into hot, blue stars.
Stephan's Quintet. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
This portrait of Stephan’s Quintet, also known as Hickson Compact Group 92, was taken by the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Stephan’s Quintet, as the name implies, is a group of five galaxies. The name, however, is a bit of a misnomer. Studies have shown that group member NGC 7320, at upper left, is actually a foreground galaxy about seven times closer to Earth than the rest of the group.
Three of the galaxies have distorted shapes, elongated spiral arms, and long, gaseous tidal tails containing myriad star clusters, proof of their close encounters. These interactions have sparked a frenzy of star birth in the central pair of galaxies. This drama is being played out against a rich backdrop of faraway galaxies.
The image, taken in visible and infrared light, showcases WFC3’s broad wavelength range.
Eta Carinae from Hubble's STIS instrument. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
Observations by the newly repaired Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on Hubble reveals the signature balloon-shaped clouds of gas blown from a pair of massive stars called Eta Carinae. This new observation shows some of the chemical elements that were ejected in the eruption seen in the middle of the 19th century.
STIS analyzed the chemical information along a narrow section of one of the giant lobes of gas. In the resulting spectrum, iron and nitrogen define the outer boundary of the massive wind, a stream of charged particles, from Eta Car A, the primary star. The amount of mass being carried away by the wind is the equivalent one sun every thousand years. While this “mass loss” may not sound very large, in fact it is an enormous rate among stars of all types. A very faint structure, seen in argon, is evidence of an interaction between winds from Eta Car A and those of Eta Car B, the hotter, less massive, secondary star.
Eta Car A is one of the most massive and most visible stars in the sky. Because of the star’s extremely high mass, it is unstable and uses its fuel very quickly, compared to other stars. Such massive stars also have a short lifetime, and we expect that Eta Carinae will explode within a million years.
Hubble Early Release Observation of Barred Spiral NGC 6217. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
This image of barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217 is the first image of a celestial object taken with the newly repaired Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. The camera was restored to operation during the STS-125 servicing mission in May to upgrade Hubble. The barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217 was photographed on June 13 and July 8, 2009, as part of the initial testing and calibration of Hubble’s ACS. The galaxy lies 6 million light-years away in the north circumpolar constellation Ursa Major. The blue haze at the edges are baby stars being born.
About Hubble’s repair, NASA’s Ed Weiler said, “The astronauts basically did a total repair job on Hubble, and fixed two instruments that haven’t been working for a long time. It’s not an 19 year old telescope, it’s a new telescope again.”
NASA admisinatrator Charlie Bolden, who participated in an earlier Hubble repair mission, said at the press conference unveiling the new images that “after almost twenty years of service we are so proud and honored to part of the Hubble story. The telescope is now equipped to last well into the next decade. Hubble is one of the most accomplished scientific instruments ever, and it has captured the imagination of people everywhere.”
And here’s one more: a full view of Jupiter with the impact scar visible. Jupiter from the newly refurbished Hubble. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Wong (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.), H. B. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), and the Jupiter Impact Team
The Hubble Space Telescope after its release from Servicing Mission 4. Credit: NASA
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It’s a countdown of cosmic proportions! In just six days, NASA will release the first images from the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope. These Early Release Observations (EROs) will be showcased at news briefings from NASA Headquarters at 15:00 GMT and 16:00 GMT (11 a.m. and noon EDT) Wednesday, Sept. 9 on NASA TV. The past few weeks, the Hubble team has concentrated on making high-priority science observations and finishing up instrument calibrations. Any clues as to what the first new images will include? Hubble scientists say the new images will be the first true display of the power of Hubble’s new technology, dazzling amateur and professional astronomers with a wealth of new information and areas for research. Here’s what the Hubble team has been working the past few weeks:
•The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) has been completing its checkout, but it is now taking science images on a regular basis.
•The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) is finished with its calibration activities and completing its work in support of Hubble’s EROs.
•The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) is in the final phases of its calibrations for both its near-ultraviolet and far-ultraviolet channels. The channels, which study different wavelengths of ultraviolet light, must be calibrated separately. For example, engineers and scientists are continuing to test the focus for the far-ultraviolet channel, while the near-ultraviolet channel’s focus appears to be good.
•The cooling system for the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) has cooled the instrument down to operational levels, which is great news. NICMOS was not serviced during the STS-125 mission, but it was shut down in September 2008 following an anomaly during a spacecraft computer update. Engineers tried turning it on in July 2009, but the cooling system failed. But on on August 1, the cooling system restarted without the previous problems. “NICMOS began cooling efficiently,” said Frank Summers in the Hubble Blog, “and actually faster than expected. Note that when we say “cool,” we really mean “cold.” Really cold. Beyond Arctic, mind-numbing, freezingly cold. NICMOS is cooled to -321 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s the temperature needed for infrared observations.”
It takes NICMOS more than a week to achieve that temperature. Then the instrument must show stability at those temperatures for science to be possible. Engineers have now turned on the detectors to begin the several-week calibration process for NICMOS. So far so good, and surely we’ll hear more about NICMOS during the news briefing next week.
Here’s a new way to appreciate the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, by flying through the 10,000 galaxies in this deepest of all Hubble images. Watch the whole video if you need the background on the Hubble Deep Field and subsequent Ultra Deep Field. Start at about 3:00 if you just want to see the distances between the galaxies in this image. Nice.
This Hubble picture, taken on July 23, by the new Wide Field Camera 3, is the sharpest visible-light picture taken of the atmospheric debris from a comet or asteroid that collided with Jupiter on July 19. Credit: NASA, ESA, and H. Hammel (Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.), and the Jupiter Impact Team
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The Hubble Space Telescope was undergoing a thorough checkout of all its systems following the recent servicing mission, but scientists decided to drop everything and interrupt the observatory’s checkout and calibration to take an image of what every other telescope has by trying to view: the impact site on Jupiter. But Hubble does it better than anyone. This image, taken just yesterday (July 23) shows the black spot on the giant planet — created a small comet or asteroid — is expanding.
“Because we believe this magnitude of impact is rare, we are very fortunate to see it with Hubble,” said Amy Simon-Miller of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Details seen in the Hubble view shows a lumpiness to the debris plume caused by turbulence in Jupiter’s atmosphere.”
The new Hubble images also confirm that the May servicing visit by space shuttle astronauts was a big success.
The Jupiter impact has been a sensation ever since Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley imaged a black spot on the planet on July 19. , The only other time such a feature has been seen on Jupiter was 15 years ago after the collision of fragments from comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.
For the past several days, Earth-based telescopes have been trained on Jupiter. To capture the unfolding drama 360 million miles away, Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, gave observation time to a team of astronomers led by Heidi Hammel of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
“Hubble’s truly exquisite imaging capability has revealed an astonishing wealth of detail in the impact site,” Hammel said. “By combining these images with our ground-based data at other wavelengths, our Hubble data will allow a comprehensive understanding of exactly what is happening to the impact debris.”
Simon-Miller estimated the diameter of the impacting object was the size of several football fields. The force of the explosion on Jupiter was thousands of times more powerful than the suspected comet or asteroid that exploded over the Siberian Tunguska River Valley in June 1908.
The image was taken with the Wide Field Camera 3. The new camera, installed by the astronauts aboard space shuttle Atlantis in May, is not yet fully calibrated. While it is possible to obtain celestial images, the camera’s full power has yet to be seen.
“This is just one example of what Hubble’s new, state-of-the-art camera can do, thanks to the STS-125 astronauts and the entire Hubble team,” said Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “However, the best is yet to come.”
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As we wait (impatiently) for the Hubble Space Telescope to return to action following its repair and updating by the STS-125 astronauts, it is easy to think about how Hubble has impacted society. Hubble has become a household name, bringing astronomy to the masses with its dramatic images of the cosmos. It has also changed our understanding of the universe. But there’s more ways that HST has impacted the world. Various technologies developed for the famous orbiting telescope have helped create or improve several different medical and and scientific tools. Here are five technology spinoffs from Hubble:
Micro-Endoscope for Medical Diagnosis: Micro-endoscope. Credit: NASA
The same technology that enhances HST’s images are now helping physicians perform micro-invasive arthroscopic surgery with more accurate diagnoses. Hubble technology helped improve the micro-endoscope, a surgical tool that enables surgeons to view what is happening inside the body on a screen, eliminating the need for a more invasive diagnostic procedure. This saves time, money and lessens the discomfort patients experience.
CCDs Enable Clearer, More Efficient Biopsies A biopsy from HST CCD technology. Credit: NASA
Charge coupled devices (CCDs) used on the HST to convert light into electronic files—such as a distant star’s light directly into digital images—have been adapted to improve imaging and optics here on Earth. When scientists realized that existing CCD technology could not meet scientific requirements for the Hubble’s needs, NASA worked with an industry partner to develop a new, more advanced CCD. The industry partner then applied many of the NASA-driven enhancements to the manufacture of CCDs for digital mammography biopsy techniques, using CCDs to image breast tissue more clearly and efficiently. This allows doctors to analyze the tissue by stereotactic biopsy, which requires a needle rather than surgery.
The semiconductor industry has benefitted from the ultra-precise mirror technology that gives the HST its full optical vision and telescopic power. This technological contribution helped improve optics manufacturing in microlithography—a method for printing tiny circuitry, such as in computer chips. The system uses molecular films that absorb and scatter incoming light, enabling superior precision and, consequently, higher productivity and better performance. This translates into better-made and potentially less costly computer circuitry and semiconductors.
Software Enhances Other Observatories Hubble software used by other observatories. Credit: NASA
With the help of a software suite created by a NASA industry partner in 1995, students and astronomers were able to operate a telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory Institute via the Internet. The software is still widely in use for various astronomy applications; using the CCD technology, the software locates, identifies, and acquires images of deep sky objects, allowing a user to control computer-driven telescopes and CCD cameras.
Optics Tool Sharpens Record-Breaking Ice Skates Hubble technology helps Olympic skaters. Credit: NASA
Current Olympic record-holding speed skater Chris Witty raced her way to a gold medal in the 1,000-meter at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Witty and other American short- and long-track speed skaters used a blade-sharpening tool designed with the help of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and technology from HST. NASA had met with the U.S. Olympic Committee and helped to develop a new tool for sharpening speed skates, inspired by principles used to create optics for the HST. Speed skates sharpened with this new instrument demonstrated a marked improvement over conventionally sharpened skates.
Astronaut Mike Massimino in the foreground, with Mike Good on the end of the robotic arm, backdropped by the shuttle, Hubble, and Earth. Credit: NASA
In our last installment of images from the STS-125 mission, we left off with third EVA of the mission. Since then, as I’m sure you know, the astronauts have completed two more EVAs, released Hubble and are waiting for the weather to improve in Florida so they can land. So, let’s get caught up with the latest images released by NASA. I love the image above, as it has everything in it about the mission: two spacewalking astronauts from EVA #4 (Mike Massimino and Mike Good), the shuttle Atlantis, Hubble, and a beautiful view of Earth. Continue reading “More Stunning Images From the Hubble Servicing Mission”
Hoffman, on the robotic arm, works with Story Musgrave on an EVA on STS-61. Credit: NASA
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Not surprisingly, former astronaut Jeff Hoffman has been watching the current Hubble servicing mission with interest. After all, he was a member of the first repair crew that visited the telescope in December 1993, part of the team which essentially rescued the Hubble program from what could have been a disaster. But, now Hoffman is impressed with this current crew and what they’ve accomplished, saying they are part of a “brotherhood of Hubble warriors.”
And Hoffman is feeling a little nostalgic, too.
“It certainly brought me back 15 years to when I was doing that job,” he told Universe Today. “I look at them floating around Hubble, seeing images from their helmet cameras and watching them work with all those tools, and I feel a little heart tug. But also, I feel tremendous excitement because every time we go up there we just make Hubble better and better. It’s just a phenomenal story.” Hoffman installing WFPC2 on Hubble. Credit: NASA
One of Hoffman’s tasks on the first Hubble repair mission, STS-61, was to install the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Later nicknamed “The Camera that Saved Hubble,” WFPC2 replaced the original optical camera on Hubble, and was constructed to work with the corrective optics instrument (COSTAR) – basically a set of eyeglasses to overcome the spherical aberration in Hubble’s primary mirror.
“I put the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in Hubble in 1993,” Hoffman reminisced, “and that is the camera that has taken the majority of the spectacular pictures by which the whole world has come to know Hubble. This crew has removed it now and replaced it with an even more powerful camera. So I had kind of a bittersweet moment when I saw “my camera” leaving the telescope!”
But he said he is looking forward to seeing even more spectacular images from WFPC3. Plus, Hoffman has been invited to Goddard Space Flight Center to see his old camera when it returns from space. “I’ll get to put my hands on it once again after fifteen years.” Astronaut Jeffrey A. Hoffman, floating in the forward middeck area, displays tools used in the five space walks on STS-61. Credit: NASA
For Hoffman, what is most remarkable about the current mission was the type of work the astronauts were able to do, and the panoply of tools they had at their disposal. “One of the fantastic developments is the ability for astronauts to do complex servicing, and the tools are really what make these tasks possible,” he said. “Wearing astronaut gloves, you are really pretty clumsy. It’s like wearing welder’s gloves or ski mittens and trying to do brain surgery. But the engineers have now developed a whole suite of tools optimized for the individual tasks, allowing what would otherwise be impossible to come within the realm of what an astronaut dressed in a spacesuit can accomplish.”
The electronics on two of Hubble’s instruments had failed, — the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) — and the STS-125 crew basically went into the electronic guts of both instruments, pulled out circuit boards and replaced them.
Seeing the astronauts make repairs at that level was a marvel, Hoffman said. “That is something which we never imagined doing with Hubble. But it just shows how with every mission we’ve gotten more and more willing to push the envelope.” Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman. Credit: NASA
Hoffman retired from NASA in 1997 and is now a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. He believes Hubble’s greatest legacy is how the observatory has impacted society.
“People all over the world have developed a love for Hubble,” he said, “and from Hubble we have the knowledge that the Universe is a stranger and more beautiful place that any of us had ever imagined. That’s what Hubble has done for people, giving us breathtaking images that are in some cases more beautiful than any abstract artist could come up with.”
But it’s not just the beautiful pictures. “The power of Hubble to show us what the Universe is like just one or two billion years after the Big Bang, where we can actually see the birth of the first few galaxies that were forming in our universe — this is mind boggling stuff. Hubble has re-written astronomy textbooks over the years and with the new set of instruments having even more sensitivity, it’s going to happen all over again.” Hubble floating away after being released by the STS-61 crew in 1993. Credit: NASA
Now that the current crew has released Hubble, Hoffman recalled watching the telescope float away after the completion of his own mission. “They were probably looking at it with the same feeling of nostalgia as we did as we watched it slowly drift away,” he said. “It’s kind of a fraternity of Hubble, all the people in the six crews who have been involved with the Hubble Space Telescope. Every time I see someone from the crews that have worked on Hubble or the thousands of people on the ground who have been involved with it over the years, it’s like a brotherhood/sisterhood of Hubble warriors, so to speak. It’s been just an incredible adventure and it is nowhere near the end yet. I look forward to another 5, 10, maybe 15 years of incredible discoveries coming down from the Hubble Space Telescope.”
