Hubble Snaps Farthest / Oldest Galaxy

starannihilator writes "Astronomers use gravitational lensing, a magnifying effect caused by the gravity / mass of galaxies, to capture images of the farthest / oldest galaxy known - from when the universe was just 750 million years old. Stories from the BBC, Sign On San Diego, West Hawaii Today, or Mercury News."

Comments

Good Promo for Hubble

[mphase]

Hubble needs this sort of thing to keep it serviced. This is very interesting and in my mind at least partially justifies Hubble.

Re:Good Promo for Hubble

[asdf 101]

Yes, they decided to cut the serice support for Hubble.. then -- in the face of public criticism -- spoke about possibly reviewing their decision.. and have now decided to tank Hubble anyway.

For anybody who wants to toe the current administrations line on Hubble that it is too risky to service -- sorry mate, that theory is bollocks.

Give it a thought and it's clear that this is just an blatant attempt at politicking and penny-pinching -- save a few pennies here and a few there and look we can set up a "courier" service to the moon to fetch us some more moon rocks. I'm all for space-endeavour and for satisfying the human spirit for exploration, but I fail to understand the merit of a kennedyesque initiative that cannibalises a fully functional golden goose.

And if you want to talk about the risk of using the shuttles to service Hubble, the shuttle's terrific performance record itself should be enough to catch you on the wrong foot. Given the high complexity of these missions (we're talking "rocket-science" here right?!), the risk has clearly been marginalised given that only 2 out of 100+ missions have failed -- and those too out of an avoidable complacent attitute to safety at NASA itself.

When Columbia was lost, it was followed by a constant banter about the changing culture at NASA, but if they've changed, it only to now wear their complacency on the other foot. It's apparent that they have graduated from risk aversion to planning short sightedness.

How else can you explain the fact that they are "shying" from spending a few hundred million dollars to extend by a significant percentage the life of a mission that they have initially spend billions to get rolling itself. If NASA had a wife called M@ry, I can just about see M@ry being called upon to bring the shotgun so that her hubby can shoot himself in atleast one foot.

On JWT as a replacement for Hubble, all along JWT was intended to complement Hubble, not to supplement it. And besides, JWT going to be operational only by ~2011. Twiddle-thumbs time then for all the people hoping to have put in research hours on an otherwise fully operational tool.

Shuttle repair mission...

[case_igl]

I can't recall how many hundreds of times I have seen Hubble in the headlines over the last few years. The waiting list for Hubble time is insane, and the science has been among the best that NASA has ever done.

It's amazing to me that this "it's too risky" reasoning for the cancellation of the repair missions to Hubble is still being floated.

It's franky disappointing to me as American that we are such a nation of wimps now. I personally think it's more of a risk to send people to the space station in regards to the scientific return.

While I have seen hundreds of "discovered by Hubble this week" I have not seen one discovery in the news come from the station. It's usually fighting with the Russians or announcing it's going to cost ten times more than we thought to do one twentieth the science.

Yes, I am off-topic. But I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!

Re:Shuttle repair mission...

[Surlyboi]

it is too risky, why do it when they're going to send up another hubble thats better

Maybe. Or maybe they'll pull the plug on sending the next one up due to lack of funding. Nothing's certain in these days of $87 billion war costs. Hubble is being killed not because it's too dangerous to service but because it doesn't fit into the current administration's space agenda.

Someone tell me again...

[ShadowBlasko]

WHY are we just letting the Hubble die again?

Oh yeah, thats right, NASA says that it costs too much to maintain, and it's getting close to its estimated end of life date.

Guess we better junk it because it seems we aren't getting any good science out of it. Whats that? oldest known galaxy huh? Cool! .. lets study it to learn more about the origins of the galaxy! Oh, we can't lease any more time on the Hubble because we're junking it remember?.

Once again, I think NASA really needs to learn a very old saying that you don't junk something until you have a replacement. When the JWT is operational and snug in its lagrange point, then we can talk about whether or not to scrap the Hubble. Until then, I think its worth perhaps *outsourcing* a maintinence mission to another country (or private company) who thinks they can get the job done.

Who says we *have* to use the shuttle? Or is there something I am missing about the shuttle being the only craft that can work on the Hubble?

Then again, I can't think of anyone else that can get there at the moment either. And if they can, I suppose they would probably be more apt to put their own agenda's ahead of a NASA maintinence mission.

Oh well.

Less than 10% more distance to see nothing

[gringer]

So, we can apparently see [the light from] something 13 billion light years away, and find something 750 million years old, meaning we can see about 95% of the life of the universe.

How long will it be before we can get to the point where the whole universe was invisible?

Re: EVA

[neodymium]

Don't the astronauts have to do EVA anyway while doing the Hubble service ? I mean, they should be able to spare 10mins for checking the shuttle... No reason for a second EVA.

NASA Didn't Decide - O'Keefe Did

[jmichaelg]

The decision was a unilateral decision on O'Keefe's part. He's been called to account by Senator Barbara Mikulski.

In typical cya fashion, O'Keefe called on Harold Gehman, who led the Columbia accident inquiry, to review the decision. It's a bit of neener neener on O'Keefe's part because Gehman's commission nailed NASA for sloppy safety management policies.

What O'Keefe is saying to Gehman is "Look you SOB - you try running an agency that's being pulled 20 different ways and see if you don't start cutting corners."

Problem for O'Keefe is that there are plenty of ideas on how to both service Hubble and adhere to the Gehman's commission's advice. Not surprisingly, NASA management choses to ignore its engineers instead of listen.

Nasa will be well rid of Mr. O'Keefe when he leaves. Next time, maybe the powers that be will appoint someone with an engineering background to run the agency.