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Hubble's Infrared Camera Repaired
blamanj writes "Hubble's newly repaired Infrared Camera, has produced some interesting new pics, including a "golden band" at the galactic center that is 'churning out stars at a torrid pace.' NASA press release and images here."
It's amazing how static those pictures look. We take one today, we take one next year, they look identical. But if you consider that the objects that are photographed are actually moving at enormous speeds and violent eruptions are likely taking place on each little dot that we see, the awesomeness of the Universe is truly revealed.
What's truly amazing to me is that those of us who live now are able to see these structures of beauty in such vivid detail. A thousand years ago people looked at the stars and saw only points of light and deduce them to be stars or planets. How lucky we are to live in such times!
I have been pwned because my
Now, that is an amazing piece of technology. If the equipment weren't so sensative and the focal length was in miles instead of parsecs :-) then imagine if you turned it around.......
We could identify shreded Enron documents in landfills.....
But anyways, glad to see its working better now.
Anyone know if they have ever done SETI work with the scope? I would be curious to know if they have. Also, does NASA false-color these images?
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This slashdot post had me assuming that the galactic center being referred to was our own Milky Way's. It is not. The findings are not of our galactic center, but that of NGC 4013. "NGC 4013, which looks similar to our Milky Way Galaxy, resides in the constellation Ursa Major, 55 million light-years from Earth."
Nearly all of the cool astrophotographs that you'll see from Hubble and elsewhere are false-colored, because the visible spectrum is not any more useful than any of the other spectra (microwave, UV, and IR, to name a few), provided you have the proper equipment to capture all of them.
You can see more cool hubble pics (and other astrophotographs), and learn more about false-coloring of astrophotographs at the Astronomy Picture of the Day page.
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The red color of the bottom "hydrogen light" image looks like visible H-alpha emission at 656 nm, but it's the infrared Paschen-alpha line emitted at 1876 nm when an electron drops from level 4 to 3. Here's an easy explanation of the hydrogen spectrum.
Their hard work, your good luck (to get born now instead of in 1600 or 120,000 BC).
As the write-up fails to note, this isn't our galactic center, but that of another galaxy involved in a collision of four different galaxies, none of which is our own.
Not that it really makes any difference, cosmologically speaking, but in the interests of accurate information, here it is.
It was upgraded. It was originally cooled using expendable solid nitrogen. Although the nitrogen did run out faster than planned, its limited lifetime was intentional. The new closed-cycle neon cooler is actually a major functional upgrade over the original design.
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Does this mean the Hubble can now take pictures of people that see through their clothes?
Honestly, you would think those NASA guys would have better things to do with their time...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I have always favoured an unmanned telescope over the more expensive, manned projects. In terms of manufacturing, manned space projects always post a loss, financially. And any tech derived from them could have more easily been designed from the start in Earth-bound research laboratories. The best hope that the Hubble gives us is that if there is life out there, it is most likely to be found at the galactic center, amidst the high concentration of stars. Only a powerfull orbital scope will ever detect any extra-solar civilizations. That's where all the funding should go.