Hubble Space Telescope's Sixteenth Anniversary

An anonymous reader writes "This week marks the sixteenth anniversary of the launch of Hubble Space Telescope. 'To celebrate [...] NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), are releasing this image of the magnificent starburst galaxy, Messier 82 (M82). This mosaic image is the sharpest wide-angle view ever obtained of M82. The galaxy is remarkable for its bright blue disk, webs of shredded clouds, and fiery-looking plumes of glowing hydrogen blasting out of its central regions.' Wired News also has some nice additional images."

Hubble Ultra Deep Field

[Anonymous Coward]

Cute picture, but still nothing compares to this [hubblesite.org]. It will make you feel insignificant real quick.

Some day

[invader_allan]

Some day we'll see space mechanics, and they'll bid on the service contract for fixing old out of service equipment. Hopefully the civilian shops will be running soon before Hubble becomes completely useless. Perhaps people will try to buy this thing long into the future, and have to redesign new parts to refurbish it and get it back in working order.

Re:Hubble Ultra Deep Field

[MightyMartian]

I wonder what they'd think if the alien said "Oh yeah, and all those Creationists of yours are absolute retards. Five thousand zloklor ago our scientists and politicians agreed that Creationists were the worst kind of intellectual ingrates, and held official Mock A Creationist Days, and that's why we're landing on your planet instead of you on ours!"

Re:Hubble Ultra Deep Field

[ModExec]

The universe itself is about 14 billion years old, and many cosmologists argue that it is at least 100 billion light years across.

Please bear with my ignorance as to physics, but isn't that impossible?

If the speed of light is supposed to be the fastest speed at which matter can travel is the speed of light, shouldn't the universe at most be 28 billion light years across?

Or is it that the threshold between this universe and that which lies beyond can travel faster than the speed of light? and if that's the case, why would it only be limited to ~4c?

/sorry to threadjack
//just curious
///hopes Hubble won't go looking for my car keys.

Re:Hubble Ultra Deep Field

[sunwukong]

I prefer this [stsci.edu] for feeling insignificant.

Well maybe not insignificant, but at least well aware of what the universe thinks of our place in it ...

Re:What kind of pisses me off...

[dfjghsk]

What do you want them to do; mention every contractor who worked on Hubble in every press release, announcement, or mention of hubble?

They certainly aren't trying to hide the fact that Lockheed, Perkin-Elmer, and many other companies worked on Hubble:

A Brief History of the Hubble Space Telescope [nasa.gov]
The following year, design of the telescope began in earnest, with the award of contracts to the Perkin-Elmer Corporation to construct the mirror and optical assembly and the Lockheed Missiles and Space Company to construct the spacecraft and its support systems.

NASA history: Hubble Space Telescope [nasa.gov]:
Page 1, Paragraph 4:
Perkin-Elmer Corporation in Danbury, Connecticut, was chosen to develop the optical system and guidance sensors. Lockheed Missiles and Space Company of Sunnyvale, California, was selected to produce the protective outer shroud and the spacecraft systems for the telescope, as well as to assemble and test the finished product.

NASA Hubble Team Receives International Academy of Astronautics Award (2004) [spaceref.com]

LOCKHEED MARTIN HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE TEAMS RECEIVE NASA HONORS (2005) [lockheedmartin.com]

A DECADE OF DISCOVERY: HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE -- THE DISCOVERIES AND THE PEOPLE (2000) [nasa.gov]:
Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the Hubble Space Telescope, ...

NOTE TO EDITORS: MEDIA INVITED TO JOIN IN PUBLIC CELEBRATION OF TEN YEARS OF THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE (2000) [nasa.gov]:
Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the Hubble Space Telescope, ...

Google search for "site:nasa.gov lockheed hubble":
Results 1 - 10 of about 14,400 from nasa.gov

Re:Hubble Ultra Deep Field

[xSauronx]

the contradiction is that he believes there are aliens, not because god put them there, but because space is so vast. he has some weird infatuation with alien sightings and such, as well, and never brings up god when he talks about any of it.

dinosaur fossils are there because of the devil, aliens are there because we dont know what the shiny lights were.

Re:Hubble Ultra Deep Field

[iamlucky13]

Astronomers estimate there are on the order of 100 billion galaxies in the universe with an average of 100 billion stars each. That gives us roughly 10^22 stars (10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) stars in the universe. If somebody wrote an almanac with a one page article about each of those stars, it would be about 25 times as thick as the distance between Earth and Alpha Centauri.

The largest nuclear bombs detonated by humans have released an energy of approximately 400 quadrillion joules. This is about 20,000,000 times the energy expended by a Saturn V rocket, one of humanity's most impressive feats of engineering. In comparison, the time it takes our sun alone to generate the same amount of energy as that 100 megaton bomb is a single billionth of a second, almost long enough for a crew capsule propelled at top speed by that Saturn V to travel the thickness of a layer of saran-wrap!

Insignificant, yes, but the only life we know of with the ability to recognize that fact. When I think about God creating all this, awestruck doesn't even come close (hey, if people are going to keep getting modded up for flying spaghetti monster wisecracks, it seems fair to share my perspective, too).