Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Hubble's Upgrade: Pretty Pictures

Posted by michael on from the say-cheese dept.

EReidJ writes "The Hubble Space Telescope has come out with astonishing new pictures, our "deepest glimpse[s] into the depths of space and time". An article on the photos is here. These are striking in their beauty, and are sure to become commonplace desktop images in the next month. The official site to view all of the photos is here, but the site's already going pretty slow. washingtonpost.com has the four photos in series on its home page." There are also stories on space.com and MSNBC.

1 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. Possibly stupid Question.. by Havokmon · · Score: 5, Interesting
    How does it all work?

    "The Advanced Camera for Surveys has twice the resolution, or sharpness, of the WFPC-2 and five times the sensitivity. It is built around an ultra-sensitive 16-million-pixel detector array that dwarfs the chips found in consumer digital cameras."

    (I like if's.) If galaxies are now able to be seen by us because of such higer resolution, what would happen if we point the Hubble at something closer? Could we see the surface of Pluto? Would we just not be able to focus? Or can we only see things that emit light?

    --
    "I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)