Hubble's Deepest Pictures Yet 416
MrBook2 writes "NASA have just released the Ultra Deep Field (UDF). This image took 800 exposures and clocked in at 11.3 days (!) of exposure time. This image is deeper than the Hubble Deep Field which has yielded a vast amount of knowledge. So, why exactly was it that NASA wanted to scrap the Hubble?"
Why scrap Hubble (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why scrap Hubble (Score:5, Informative)
I submitted the 'save the hubble' story [yahoo.com] a couple days ago and was turned down.
Re:Why scrap Hubble (Score:3, Interesting)
Why must Hubble die? It's producing too much science, and not consuming enough pork dollars.
End of story. Hubble will die, we'll build a reusable shuttle that still can't go beyond low earth orbit, we'll spend tens of billions turning the existing shuttles into unmanned cargo lifters inferior t
It must die to make way for the new. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why scrap Hubble, you can help with SaveHubble.org (Score:3, Interesting)
Senator Barbara Mikulski is also leading some efforts in the Senate [savehubble.org] as well as a Maryland Delegation [savehubble.org], and has a response from O'Keefe [savehubble].
On the house side we have picked up 5 more co-sponsors.
Ehlers
Markey
Inslee
Cummings Jim Moran
http://SaveHubble.org [savehubble.org] could use some help with our efforts to poll all of
Re:Why scrap Hubble (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore this highly unlikely arrangement will never have the resolution, versatility, and usefulness for other types of astronomy as the Hubble.
The horrible truth is that we are simply losing the collective will to achieve great things in the name of achieving cockamamie political boondoggles, both terrestrial and otherwise.
Re:Why scrap Hubble (Score:5, Informative)
This is absolutely 100% false. The Hubble UDF image was taken over the span of several months, not over 11.3 days of consecutive orbits. Stacking images from earthbound telescopes taken over several different days/months is a standard astronomical practice. No special equipment (i.e. a worldwide distributed network of telescopes) is required to do this.
As for not having the versatility of Hubble -- there are many terrestrial observatories that are far more versatile (and accessible!) than HST. It all depends on the sort of observing you're doing.
Re:Why scrap Hubble (Score:3, Insightful)
The horrible truth is that we are simply losing the collective will to achieve great things in the name of achieving cockamamie political boondoggles, both terrestrial and otherwise.
The James Webb Telescope will be launched in 2010. It will greatly exceed Hubble in capability, especially in the infrared. Without servicing the Hubble shouldn't fail until 2007. Is it regretable the there is a gap between the two missions? Yes. Is it worth $1G to service Hubble with a shuttle flight? No.
Re:Why scrap Hubble (Score:5, Insightful)
My question is: why service the Hubble with a super-expensive shuttle flight? How much would it cost to build a replacement and launch it on a standard rocket?
We always hear about how much the Hubble cost, but I'm guessing that a lot of that was development costs. They still have the blueprints; how much could it cost to dust them off and build a quick clone?
I would imagine that they could build a shiny new Hubble and launch it on an expendable rocket for less than the cost of a manned service mission to the old one. The key to keeping costs down would be to avoid the strong temptation to spend more money on "improving" the original design.
Re:Why scrap Hubble (Score:3, Interesting)
I've wondered that myself.
I would hope, at least, that they would improve the electronics and construction materials. Lots of advances in those field since Hubble was designed & built two decades ago.
Doing so is probably not trivial, but it's not a full redesign either.
Heck, with the advances in manufacturing, we could probably get three new Hubbles for the price of one. I bet there's a lot of astronomers/astrophyscists out there who'd give a lot for better access to a Hubble.
Now what would
Why is this "insightful"? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why scrap Hubble (Score:3, Interesting)
Add to this, that hubble can get into the near UV, which is almost completely absorbed by the atmosphere.
You
Re:Why scrap Hubble (Score:3, Informative)
NASA doesn't want to scrap the Hubble. They have to scrap the Hubble. Really it boils down to $$ and resources. Their funding is being cut severely and they have to choose which projects to keep going. With the Hubble costing them $$ in new parts and shuttle visits for maintenance, cutting it has the highest impact.
Re:Why scrap Hubble (Score:4, Insightful)
How ironic that the occasional shuttle mission to service the scientifically invaluable Hubble should be considered too expensive when compared with the continuing Disney extravaganza of manned space exploration that is deemed indispensable.
Re:Why scrap Hubble (Score:5, Interesting)
As reported recently in the news, this was refuted by two independent engineering teams *within NASA*. At which point NASA changed its tune and said that servicing the Hubble was too dangerous for the astronauts.
Although recently *another* leak from inside NASA claimed that repairs to the Hubble were no more dangerous than any one of the 25 planned missions to complete the space station.
There doesn't seem to be a good reason to abandon Hubble. Which makes me think that the real reason has far more to do with politics and budget appropriations than anything else.
Max
Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble... (Score:5, Interesting)
Is that most of the images get imaged processed to death. Without Kalman filtering and deconvolution algorithms they would look lame, and these algorithms can be done to images taken from Earthbound telescopes.
The high-redshift objects observations like this are intended to uncover have effectively no emission in the visible band by the time their light reaches Earth. What Earthbound telescope did you have in mind to produce this high-redshift infrared imaging?
Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble... (Score:5, Insightful)
For press release images, it is true that they are not all that explicit about the details of the image processing. However, you are absolutely wrong that an image of this quality could be produced by a ground-based telescope. The atmosphere blurs out the light from distant objects and blocks some kinds of light either partially or completely. Sure we apply some image processing routines to the images, but fundamentally there is more information contained in a Hubble image like this than there is in a ground-based image taken by the most powerful telescope on Earth (Keck). On the other hand, there are some things that Keck can do that Hubble can't.
I don't know why some /.'ers seem to think that Hubble is easily replaceable. It isn't. When Hubble's mission ends, some types of observations will be impossible to make with other current instruments.
Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, really. You know, radio observatories have been publishing for decades images that have higher angular resolution than Hubble. In fact, the VLBA (the Very Long Baseline Array) still outperforms Hubble in terms of angular resolution. Yes, it is true that the VLT can produce images with adaptive optics that are as sharp as the Hubble's.
HOWEVER, angular resolution is not everything! Hubble gives astronomers access to areas of the electromagnetic spectrum that ground-based observatories cannot access because of the Earth's atmosphere. Also, the field of view of AO images is tiny. Read the comments to any Hubble story, and you will see this theme over and over and over again. Some of Hubble's capabilities are unique. The JWST will not duplicate many of these unique capabilities, and NO telescope on the ground or in space can duplicate some of the science made possible by Hubble.
Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble... (Score:5, Informative)
Please read some of the posts by astronomers (including me) in this story and any other HST story. This is absolutely untrue. Yes, AO does allow ground-based astronomers to take high angular resolution images comparable to the quality of Hubble. However, the science that you can get from AO images does not compare to the science you can get out of Hubble images. AO is still too limited in many ways, and there is no way it will ever overcome some of the limitations. THE FACT IS THAT ULTRAVIOLET ASTRONOMY IS IMPOSSIBLE FROM THE GROUND! No AO telescope can observe in the UV, which Hubble can. This makes impossible many topics in Quasar research, interstellar and intergalactic medium research, hot star research, and a zillion other fields that I can't think of off the top of my head.
Re:What andy doesn't know about the Hubble... (Score:5, Informative)
(2) The atmosphere blocks alot of the UV band, in particular the hydrogen 1 Lyman-alpha line. That's the brighest emission line of the most common element in the universe. With a wavelength of about 121.6nm (unredshifted), not much of it punches through the atmosphere. Check out this [berkeley.edu] for a primer on what's so important about the lyman alpha line.
What's this whining about scrapping hubble (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble (Score:5, Insightful)
The truth is, the Hubble is still very capable, in fact more so than when it was launched. It needs new batteries and gyros, and as long as we're there, some new science instruments, and it'll keep going happily for a long time to come yet.
If new batteries and gyros are put on board, they'll last even longer; the new ones are capable of lasting far longer than the originals.
Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble (Score:4, Insightful)
You're wrong. The JWST will cover some of the optical, just not up through blue. Why?
Because the optical is boring. Scientifically, it's not interesting. Deep-field objects are redshifted, and so naturally a big telescope will concentrate on the longer wavelengths.
Besides, go look at some of the pictures that Spitzer has put out. They look gorgeous. They're fake color, sure, but who cares? In fact a lot of this stuff is redshifted, as I mentioned, so you're not even looking at it in "real" light anyway.
The JWST is a replacement telescope to Hubble. Some features of Hubble's - like the ability to see in the blue band - just isn't that important for science right now.
and it'll keep going happily for a long time to come yet.
This is, of course, naive. Hubble is a space telescope, and it's already pockmarked from space debris. It's just a matter of time until Hubble is damaged beyond repair.
It was never meant to last forever. Let it die.
Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble (Score:5, Interesting)
To some degree, this is true. But the UV spectrum is *very* interesting, as it can be used for, amongst other things, detecting organic compounds in distant objects. Well, guess what, the JWST doesn't cover UV, either, and neither does any other telescope currently available, since the UV is only reachable from space.
The fact is, the Hubble and JWST instruments are *complementary*. The Hubble can still do a lot of valuable science, and shutting it down for supposed budgetary reasons is just plain silly, IMHO.
Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, I'm completely biased in that part of my Phd work is based on STIS work
As a cynical thought on JWST, don't underestimate the capacity for de-scoping the mission. It's happened already and is biting big projects (especially space-based ones) quite a bit in recent times. But maybe I'm just too pessismistic...
$AUS0.02
Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble (Score:3, Informative)
Yah, yah, I know. The post was something like 4 lines long - it wasn't intended to be in depth. I was actually saying that the optical is boring with reference to JWST, which is correct - JWST is a deep-field scope, and deep-field high-optical/UV isn't nearly as useful as deep/far infrared.
It was a bit of a short-tempered post be
Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble (Score:3, Insightful)
NGST is most certainly not a replacement for Hubble. And to say that optical is boring shows how very vert little to know of the science which is being done with HST and which will not be able to be done EVER again until another 2m class optical telescope gets put into orbit or optical ground based adaptive optics catches on (which will never happen because of the athmosphereic absorption). JWST was proposed, not as a replacement to JWST, b
Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble (Score:3, Informative)
Because JWST is an medium optical, near infrared, and far infrared telescope, not an IR scope as the parent said, and therefore it is informative?
NGST is most certainly not a replacement for Hubble.
It is in the deep-field category, which is where all the pretty-picture enthusiasts are pushing.
optical ground based adaptive optics catches on
Catches on? I think just about everyone agrees that optical AO is the obvious next step - h
Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble (Score:3, Informative)
Wow. I'm in awe. With "insight" like that, who needs science?
Here's a little basic physics for you: when hydrogen ionizes and recombines, it emits photons at a discrete series of wavelengths known as the Lyman series. The brightest line is the H 1 Lyman alpha, at 121.6 nm -- the brightest line from the most common element (99%) in the
Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not too risky. They could do it if they wanted to. They'd simply have to recertify the shuttles specifically to do it, and what they're saying is that the excess cost to do that is not worth the limited science that Hubble would do in the remaining years it has left.
In other words, Hubble is too expensive to keep running. That makes it uneconomical now.
The main problem with the controversy is that there are emotions involved, and that makes for very bad decision-making. Any of the advocates for Hubble always push the emotional attachment to Hubble, rather than the simple by-the-numbers math.
Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble (Score:5, Interesting)
So, some kind of mission to the scope is going to be necessary if it's to be safely de-orbited. And if we're going there anyway, and we have new equipment ALREADY BUILT for it, why not bolt on the de-orbit retros, and at the same time put in the new equipment and reboost it, and get another 5 years out of the old dog?
Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble (Score:5, Funny)
Deep pictures (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Deep pictures (Score:3, Funny)
Ok Astronomy guys (Score:3, Interesting)
Hubble Ultra Deep Field comments (Score:5, Informative)
It goes back to an era quite a bit earlier than the earlier deep-fields--about 400 and 800 million years after the big bang--and they are noticing quite a bit more chaos in the early universe, as the first galaxies were forming:
So, they are already seeing oddball things that they didn't see in earlier deep-field images.
The image as presented is actually a composite of two images, one taken in visible light and one taken in near-infrared. This allows the image to show details that would have normally been obscurred by dust.
Re:Ok Astronomy guys (Score:2, Interesting)
1) The universe is a lot older than we thought
2) There was no big bang, and space is infinite
3) Space curves back on itself
It's just interesting that each time they release pictures from really really deep space, they have to revise the estimate for the time of the big bang.
answers (Score:3, Informative)
1) quite possibly. Jury is still out.
2) No. Big bang is still the best bet and universe definitely appears to be finite (which doesn't mean there is a boundary or edge, just that it doesn't go on forever).
3) Yes, space curves back on itself. That is the only way to have a boundless finite universe.
References:
Physics 110 cosmology FAQ [washington.edu]
No Edge, No Centre [sonoma.edu]
Will better images ever show the edge of the universe? [astronomycafe.net]
How old is the universe? Finite or infinite? Have an edge? [space.com]
Re:Ok Astronomy guys (Score:3, Informative)
1) The universe is a lot older than we thought
No, no one who knows the first thing about cosmology
Re:Ok Astronomy guys (Score:5, Interesting)
and they indicate that what we're looking at is about 400-800M years after the Big Bang.
Generally, the galaxies appear way more active than what we see locally, which is to be expected. But I--total amateur that I am--think it's a bit odd that the galaxies got slapped together so quickly. Whether it draws any of our assumptions about the Big Bang itself into question remains to be seen.
Dark matter! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ok Astronomy guys (Score:5, Insightful)
The EDGE (Score:3, Informative)
Look closely. (Score:4, Funny)
Comparing (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Comparing (Score:2)
why scrap the Hubble? (Score:3, Informative)
Because thanks to adaptive optics, it is now possible to get very close to hubble's resolution with Earth-based telescopes. Thus, it is much, much cheaper to use those ground-based scopes.
Because we don't have a really huge budget for this sort of thing, and all the money that goes into Hubble could be used on a newer, better space based scope.
Re:why scrap the Hubble? (Score:2)
Re:why scrap the Hubble? (Score:5, Informative)
...but you cannot do UV work from the ground, as the atmosphere almost absorbs all UV flux of astrophysical interest. Also, AO is limited to about an arcminute around bright guide stars, and cannot provide good correction for the Earth's atmosphere beyond this radius. Laser projection systems are being developed to provide all-sky coverage, but they're a hassle to run consistently.
Dr Fish
Re:why scrap the Hubble? (Score:3, Informative)
Good points by Dr. Fish rebutting this, but there is one other point about AO -- it is *very* difficult to get precise photometry (measurements of the brightness of the objects in the field) from AO observations. These measurements are a necessity for most scientific studies of the area imaged.
Re:UV? (Score:4, Informative)
Dr Fish
Re:why scrap the Hubble? (Score:2)
Why scrap the hubble.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Several extra billion dollars a year makes for a happy Boing and Lockheed, the real winners.
Braddock Gaskill
Re:Why scrap the hubble.... (Score:2, Funny)
Damn straight, several extra billion dollars a year would make me a very happy Boing.
Oh, did you mean Boeing [boeing.com]?
Re:Why scrap the hubble.... (Score:3, Insightful)
on the other hand, if Bush said "we will spare no expense to save hubble and pay for it by cancel any projects involving Lockheed and Boeing" we would have a slashdot thread about how Bush is responsible for layoffs in the aerospace industry.
So I guess he's damned if he does and damned if he don't.
Sounds like a good idea to me. (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at the age of the shuttle and most of the military jets the US uses these days. Other than a few exceptions th
same reason.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Same reason microsoft doesn't support windows 3.1. Technology ages, wears out, gets replaced by the newer-better-faster-cheaper tech., or simply becomes more hassle to maintain than it's worth.
Re:same reason.... (Score:5, Interesting)
The James Webb telescope in certain ways is much better than Hubble because of the larger mirror but can't see in the blue and UV which is OK if you're looking at distant, redshifted stuff but useless for looking at a lot of intergalactic events including some star formation processes. Furthermore, the biggest limitation of the space telescopes is one of time - we've got scads of ground based telescopes that users can schedule time on. For space-based telescopes, we've only got a few and the waiting lists are long. If we've got two telescopes, it basically doubles the number of users and science that can be done. Things like this UDF shot are hard to do since the 11 or so days of exposure that it required are hard to get with all of the competing time requirements.
The line about Hubble being too dangerous to service are bunk as well. Although the spacewalk portions of the repair are hazardous, there has never, to my knowledge, been any sort of incident during a spacewalk. That seems to indicate that it is not devastatingly hazardous. Also, the ISS is actually much more dangerous to get to due to its higher inclination. Furthermore, the 20 or so further Shuttle flight needed to finish it have a vastly higher cumulative risk. The ISS is basically incapable of doing meaninful science at this point. The NSF did a study about 5 years ago where it pointed out that ISS was either incapable of fufilling its science objectives or that they could be done better on the ground. Since then, the science capability of ISS has been reduced even more. Basically, ISS is a $20 billion project to keep the US shuttle contractors in work and to keep Russian aerospace engineers from going to 3rd world ICBM programs. As such, it's not a bad use of money since the cost of those Russian engineers going abroad in terms of military expenditures we'd have to do 10 years from now are much higher. However, that said, I'd rather that our military welfare not step on the toes of actually getting science done.
And lastly, the most important reason to keep Hubble running is that the Webb telescope isn't operating yet. It uses an folding mirror which has never been operationally tested. It sits too far away from Earth to ever be serviced should it have a malfunction. What if the booster lofting Webb blows up? If we deorbit Hubble, we open ourselves up to having NO space based optical and near IR telescope. We should at least service Hubble to keep it running until Webb is up and running reliably.
Not fixing hubble because... (Score:3, Insightful)
Going Deep (Score:2, Funny)
huh?
Scrap hubble because... (Score:2, Informative)
http://astrobio.net/news/print.php?sid=835
CLICKY HERE [astrobio.net]
Replace Hubble? (Score:2, Insightful)
A modern telescope could capture images with less of an exposure time, letting us view more of the sky in less time, and with greater clarity.
Re:Replace Hubble? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why HST is serviceable, so that new instruments using improved technology can be added. The UDF was only possible because of the new Advanced Camera for Surveys that was installed during the last servicing mission.
A modern telescope could capture images with less of an exposure time, letting us view more of the sky in less time, and with greate
Exhilarating and Depressing (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, I am deeply depressed by these pictures because I know (to many 9s of certainty) that I shall never be able to visit these places. Seeing these galaxies makes them seem close enough to touch. Yet they remain so unreachable. SIGH!
Are you kidding me? Flight safety. (Score:3, Insightful)
How about because the only spacecraft they have available to fix it is a flying deathtrap, and they'd like to kill as few additional astronauts as possible?
If they could figure a way to do it with Soyuzes, great. But don't try to talk NASA into endangering more lives just because you think George Bush is a dick.
--riney
Flying deathtrap ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a mere matter of "acceptable risk" and "public opinion". If NASA decides the risk is "acceptable" and the "opinion" is that people would like to see Hubble repaired instead of chances reduced to 0% that there will happen an accident: Hubble will be repaired!
If one thinks of the future, with a more advanced spaceship, there will always be a risk that is accepted, and there will always be public opinion to make that risk a go or no go for launch.
I hope many people will see this picture, and wonder about the question: why not send the Space Shuttle back up now to safe Hubble, instead of waiting 10 years for who knows what ?
Re:Are you kidding me? Flight safety. (Score:5, Interesting)
Before the Columbia accident, the estimated critical failure rate for Shuttle missions was 2%. The CAIB revised this, to 2%. Yes, that's right, their investigation found that the previous failure estimates were correct. In other words, our understanding of the danger inherent in shuttle missions has not changed at all since before the accident, only our willingness to face the danger has changed.
Why? I don't know. There's no shortage of astronauts willing to take the same risks they've always taken, and fly another HST servicing mission. They recognize the benefits in keeping the greatest scientific instrument we've ever produced healthy. Too bad NASA and the president do not. I sincerely hope that our lawmakers can salvage the mission.
no, not really... (Score:3, Insightful)
the other problem is that Hubble can't be knocked out of orbit safely - it doesn't have that capability
Scrapping Hubble (Score:5, Informative)
Are you Corn Fed? [ebay.com]
Re:Scrapping Hubble (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.marssociety.org/docs/Hubblerisk1a.pd
http://www.marssociety.org/docs/Hubblerisk2a.pd
Those are a pair of leaked NASA documents that got sent to the Mars Society. Basically Hubble is being killed for political reasons.
The Shuttle Columbia (Score:3, Informative)
Not so fast (Score:5, Interesting)
A bipartisan resolution was recently introduced in Congress to save the Hubble, a move highly supported by the Mars Society. I don't think NASA needs to be the sole financial basis for maintaining the Hubble, however. The telescope is valuable enough to private research facilities -- and still a viable platform for upgrades -- that the primary source of funding could come from them.
Back you fiends! (Score:2)
alternative uses for hubble... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:alternative uses for hubble... (Score:3, Interesting)
2.4 meters (all the usual references) isn't all that big by 2004 standards. Hubble has the best sensors money can buy, and operates in the perfect seeing of space, but its performance is (and will always be) limited by its small aperture.
Others have mentioned adaptive optics, but what excites me is optical interferometry.
...laura
Save the Hubble (Score:5, Informative)
If they are willing to take the risk to finish ISS, there is no good reason not to fix Hubble.
Write your congressman.
Replacement: The James Webb Space Telescope (Score:5, Informative)
NASA intends to eventually replace the Hubble with the James Webb Space Telescope:
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is an orbiting infrared observatory that will take the place of the Hubble Space Telescope at the end of this decade. It will study the Universe at the important but previously unobserved epoch of galaxy formation. It will peer through dust to witness the birth of stars and planetary systems similar to our own. And using JWST, scientists hope to get a better understanding of the intriguing dark matter problem. The JWST is also a key element in NASA's Origins Program. So, between the JWST and the terrestrial observatories using new adaptive optic technologies, over the long haul it makes better sense to re-allocate our scarce space resources not only on these projects, but also towards the new goals announced by GWB. Remember that Bush hardly increased NASA's budget, so they cannot afford to do everything at once.
More facts about the JWST as it stands now.
Proposed Launch Date: August 2011
Proposed Launch Vehicle: Ariane 5
Mission Duration: 5 - 10 years
Total payload mass: Approx 6200 kg, including observatory, on-orbit consumables and launch vehicle adaptor.
Diameter of primary Mirror: ~6.5 m (21.3 ft)
Clear aperture of primary Mirror: 25 m2
Primary mirror material: beryllium
Mass of primary mirror: about one-third as much as Hubble's
Focal length: TBD
Number of primary mirror segments: 18
Optical resolution: ~0.1 arc-seconds
Wavelength coverage: 0.6 - 28 microns
Size of sun shield: ~22 m x 10 m (72 ft x 33 ft)
Orbit: 1.5 million km from Earth at L2 Point
Operating Temperature: Cost: $824.8 million
Note that it is planned to launch the JWST using an Arianne rocket, which is far cheaper, and can also get the device to the L2 point. Yes, the shuttle could launch JWST into LEO (low earth orbit) but it would then have to travel up on an additional rocket. Seems like they have accounted for this and are going to use a cheaper expendable vehicle to do the job.
Re:Replacement: The James Webb Space Telescope (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Replacement: The James Webb Space Telescope (Score:3, Insightful)
1: as the other reply mentions, Webb can't do green to UV measurements. Ground based telescopes lack the ability to do good UV measurements due to atmospheric absorbtion. There's still plenty of stuff that astronomers want to do in those wavelenghts.
2: The Webb isn't up and running. What if that Ariane 5 blows up like they seem to be prone to do? What if the mirror doesn't deploy properly? The folding mirror h
why NASA wants to scrap Hubble? (Score:5, Interesting)
1. talking about a deep field image is not as entertaining for the common american as talking about a man on mars.
2. the shuttle is the weak link here. two have exploded so far. you need to service the telescope once in a while. currently nobody wants to hear the word shuttle, so why should we then service it?
not to mention that the telescope is modular and you can always install new instruments, i.e. it can live long and prosper...
what pisses me off most is that ther are several types of observation which you can *only* do from space. if hubble is scrapped, then several astronomers will be rather unhappy and unable to do their job. not to mention that hubble has provided amazing insights into space. the argument from NASA that it is too expensive to service it is BS. it's just that they are having a hard time to sell their budget in general and so they need to focus on more popular topics. now you might say: well, who cares about hubble. the new generation space telescope, james webb [nasa.gov], is around the corner! well, it is not. first, it will sit in a lagrange point in space (cool idea!!!) which is rather far away and so impossible to service if something breaks. and at this point i would like to remind you the faith of beagle 2 as well as the problems hubble had at the beginning (mistake in mirror). how shall we fix such problems on JW? in addition, JW telescope will be launched in 2011... and we all know that realistically it wont happen till 2015. so if hubble gets trashed in 2007, what will we do? why put all cards on JW if hubble is still perfectly functioning and generating the most amazing data? makes you wonder...
as for the ultra deep image: amazing! i wonder how much it costs to use the hubble for ~ 11 days...
No Military value (Score:3, Insightful)
How can you fight Terrorism with Hubble? We are at war, Remember!!!
PS: The "war-time" president has been on vacation more than any other President since Eisenhower.
8 foot straw?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Thanks in advance.
Funny Warning... (Score:5, Funny)
"You are attempting to access an image with an extremely high resolution. While the file size may be small, the number of pixels these images contains requires at least 113 MB of free RAM that is not being used by any other application, including your operating system.
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If you simply want to view this picture on screen, we recommend choosing one of the other image formats offered. If you still want to use this image, we suggest right-clicking (option-click on a Macintosh) on the following link, then choosing "Save Target As" to directly download this file to your computer. You can then try opening the file using dedicated image-viewing software. But note that few computers will be able to handle even the downloaded version of this image."
Thanks hubblesite, you guys made my day. Now when I look at my five year old system that can barely run WarCraft III, I'll remember that it's one of the few computers in the world able to handle this image. ;)
NASA and Hubble (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably because they are idiots. But has anyone else noticed that you're seeing Hubble a LOT more in the news since NASA's announcement? Methinks the scientists that operate Hubble are going for positive PR by getting lots of awesome pictures. IMHO, it's a good idea...Before people would probably ask "well, what has Hubble done lately?". Now, by making the public aware of Hubble's merit, they can generate some static for NASA.
Maybe we should listen to the experts... (Score:5, Informative)
Sean O'Keefe was picked for the head of NASA precisely because he has a reputation as a budget cutter. The man knows *nothing* about space science.
But don't take my word for this. The American Astronomical Society - an organization that includes essentially all the professional astronomers in America, and rarely if ever takes a political stand - released a statement pleading to reconsider the cancellation:
AAS's cancellation statement [aas.org]
I believe there's a statement from the UK's Royal Astronomical Society there, too.
Hubble was Canceled for Safety Reasons (Score:4, Insightful)
1) SM4 was canceled due to cost, we believe SM4 can extend the useful life of Hubble 4 or 5 years. Not True! [stsci.edu] SM4 was canceled primarily due to safety reasons. Please remember this, SM4 was Not Canceled due to Cost!!
2) Hubble is in 100% working order. Not true! The gyros which point the telescope [hubblesite.org] are slowly failing [spacetoday.net].
3) Adaptive Optics/Clever Image Processing/Ground based telescope are better than or equal to Hubble. Not completly true! AO can image single objects to better than hubble. But AO has poor field of view! [ucolick.org] For reference, the UDF images have a field of view of 180 arcseconds square. AO fails above, 30, and degrades quickly above a few. Worst, AO needs a bright star to work. There simply are not enough [ucolick.org] of these stars! I can't reference this, but experts in the field think that it will take 30 years to get to Hubble's level of performance with AO.
4) Finally, AO will never work in at UV or near/mid IR wavelengths [soton.ac.uk].
I am an astronomer, and I feel it is my duty to inform the public about the benefits of Hubble. HST serves a unique roll to the community. We should all understand exactly what the risk will be to fly SM4 before we lose 4 years of Hubble!
Has Kerry expressed an opinion on Hubble? (Score:3, Funny)
SaveHubble.org (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Deepest Pictures Ever? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, er, uh. No.
These images are seeing further than we've ever seen before because Hubble is using a more sensitive camera than the previous HDF. It's not because they sat on our butts for a few years and the 'horizon' expanded.
Re:Deepest Pictures Ever? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, that's seeing newer photons than those in the sky last night. Getting a meaningful image of more distant regions is what any reasonable person considers "seeing further", regardless of how long it took those photons to become visible.
Re:Deepest Pictures Ever? (Score:3, Redundant)
And that's about it, too. If we'd channelled all the cash that the world puts into nukes, tanks, fighter-jets, aircraft carriers etc... and instead used it to fund space exploration, or heck even undersea, we probably would be a lot farther today.
What might they find if they have technology to make viable undersea colonies. I'm sure there are valuable assets untapped beneath the oc
Re:Deepest Pictures Ever? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I would bet we might be further behind than today. You see, very little cutting edge tech has come out of nations like Iraq. However, Saddam has proven before he would rather annex land than develop a space program. Were we to simpley let men like Sa
Re:Deepest Pictures Ever? (Score:3, Interesting)
Really really glad I got out of the states for a while, maybe longer.
None of my money went to the war crime of dispersing one micron depleted uranium mixed in with transuranics (military waste stream) in the bunker busters used on urban targets. I have 4 friends who saw the childrens oncology wards in Basra in the mid 1990's as the wave of childrens kidney cancers and certain specific leukemias started popping up.
Five six years from now there will be a new wave of childrens cancers in Iraq.
Re:Deepest Pictures Ever? (Score:3, Informative)
Ahhh, if only cosmology were that simple. In fact, due to the way space itself is expanding, and especially in light of the recent discoveries that the expansion continues to accelerate, our horizen is shrinking. Eventually we'll only be able to see our gravitationally bound local group... and if the "big rip" theories hold true (which I am skeptical about on other grounds but we'll see), eventually even
Re:Because. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's equipment already built and in storage, or in process (was until the news came down) that would make the Hubble better than it ever has been, even though as it is now it's the best telescope we have in the optical range.
They want to scrap the Hubble because we need the money to maintain a space station that's nothing but a publicity stunt, and to fund research into a moon/mars mission that, much as I might wish they were real, will get scrapped as soon as the elections are over.
Also, the risk of a servicing mission is too great. Not the human risk, we're apparently perfectly willing to expend dozens of more spacewalk missions on finishing the ISS (which, again, isn't being used for what it was intended to be used for), but we can't risk one mission to work on the device which puts out more real science every week than the ISS ever has.
Re:Because. (Score:4, Informative)
Well, his still considerably better than this AC's.
The mirror is seriously messed up. It has been corrected with a lens, but the quality is still rather less than it should have had.
And, yet, still better than anything else we have today or will have in the next 20 years. There is no Hubble replacement on the way, and while earth based scopes can replace some of its functionality, they can't replace all of it.
The James Webb scope will have a much larger mirror, much faster camera
And is an IR only telescope. It does not have the range of instruments that Hubble has. In particular, it lacks any realistic UV sensors.
could be put on an orbit to allow evacuating the shuttle crew to Fred
I'm not even going to try and guess what "Fred" is, but JW isn't going to be in an orbit allowing the shuttle to do anything with. The JW Scope is going to be stationed at the L2 point, considerably farther than where the shuttle can go. If something goes wrong with the scope -- thank you for playing, goodnight. It's unserviceable, at least by anything we have now or in the forseeable future. Damn well better not have a problem with failing gyros, mirror irregularities, or anything else. Because if it does then we've put all our eggs in one basket. By the time that JW is launched and in position (late 2010 to 2012) Hubble will be unrepairable. Unless we spend the time, money, and risk on a single shuttle mission to repair and upgrade it.
Re:Because. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's broken, yes. It still works fine, as clearly shown by the fact that it continues to advance scientific knowledge about once a month. How many other scientific instruments can you say that about?
Say you have a limited edition car, like a DeLorian, or a McLaren F1. Even if one of these vehicles gets totalled, the owner will often choose to have it repaired because you can't get another one easily, and you may not ever be able to get another one at all.
The hubble is worth at least orbit-boosting, if not repairing. The the new telescope won't even be going up for several years after they plan to crash hubble, and we could use it to tide us over as it clearly still works 'good enough' despite being broken.
At WORST, if it breaks further, we'll have an ailing piece of junk that some group of scientists will likely kludge into doing SOMETHING useful while they're waiting for their timeslot on the new telescope. At BEST, we'll have a mostly working space telescope still chugging happily along if the new one turns out to be non-functional, which is a possibility most of the 'who fucking cares about hubble' people seem to ignore.
Re:Thank you! (Score:3, Informative)
Yep, that's my sense too. Of course it would not be there if the corrective lenses didn't need to be there :-)
Truth be told, a researcher likely isn't bothered by the stuff, unless their object is near a brighter star. But I've already seen stylized artwork based on the famous "pillars of life" image that includes the halo! The public thinks that junk belongs there!!!!!!
Cheers