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Hubble's Deepest Pictures Yet
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?"
Because NASA says that it costs too much to maintain, and it's getting close to its estimated end of life date.
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
it's probably more political than technical... there are tons of beurocratic (spelling?) things that most of us will never see or know about... favoritism and strings go a long way in those circles.
So Hubble has given us a lot of cool stuff. But the fact is, maintaining it costs money and that money could be used for new, improved projects with more up to date technology.
Huh. I was expecting a photo of Kant, Descartes and Hobbes arguing on the Moon or something.
--- Ban humanity.
How close is this to the "edge" ? Is it what we expected to see. Please, give a layperson like me some wowie zowie facts and figures :)
If you look carefully at the top left quadrant, you can see what appears to be Captain Kirk arguing with God.
I never get bored of seeing Hubble shots... even though I have seen the photos, it still blows my mind that there are so many galaxies out there.
APOD had an old Hubble picture of the same space location earlier today. Unfortunately I didn't save it back then. Can someone please upload it so we can compare to the old depth of field?
So, why exactly was it that NASA wanted to scrap the Hubble?
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.
And I thought my shiny new Minolta could do elite long-exposure photo's!
-raz
"I shoot troubles with a jackhammer"
I think that's a tad misleading. It implies that somehow Hubble is doing something new. The fact is, we're seeing 186,000 miles further every second, because light takes time to get places. A more accurate headline would be we're seeing older things than we've ever seen.
On Scrapping Hubble: We're not pissed because it's getting old and expensive; we're pissed off because those in power would rather break things and hurt people than do something constructive like explore space or feed children. There's more profit in making things that blow things up that you then have to rebuild than making something that will last for years.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
So that the administration can turn NASA into a more pure multi-billion dollar yearly aerospace industry subsidy without a realistic programme or a significantly increased budget. NASA has always been an aerospace subsidy to some degree, but the Mars plan would probably double the portion of NASA's budget going directly into large aerospace companies for big ticket items, at the cost of stripping the science budgets clean.
Several extra billion dollars a year makes for a happy Boing and Lockheed, the real winners.
Braddock Gaskill
So, why exactly was it that NASA wanted to scrap the Hubble?"
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.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
they want to redirect all available funds to manned missions. Even with the stunning success of the unmanned programs to Mars... It boggles the mind. Must be the thought of China putting men on the moon... I don't know...
You'd hope that with something that large it would be able to go deep...
huh?
~.Evanrude
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oh gee...mabye it has to do with the fact that it is old as hell and there is newer technology that will give use even better information than the hubble is cappable and do it about 50 times faster.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Considering how old the technology that went into Hubble is, it would make more sense to plough the money into a new telescope with the latest technology.
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.
Patriotism - the last resort of scoundrels.
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.
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
Pictures like this evoke strong and polar opposite emotions in me. On the one hand I am excited to see such beautiful images. I can't help but think there is life out there somewhere in all those galaxies (OK, maybe those really deep field galaxies are still too young to have life).
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!
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
--pete
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.
It's not broken, it's working fine. I don't know what the hell you're talking about, AFAIK ALL systems on the Hubble are working fine. The batteries are getting shot, they're the original ones.
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.
So, why exactly was it that NASA wanted to scrap the Hubble?"
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
They are not scrapping Hubble because of cost. The NASA Administrator stated that the reason was due to "the risk to the astronauts on a Hubble mission and President Bush's plans to send humans to the moon, Mars and beyond as the reason for NASA's change of focus." In fact, the planned upgrade has been built, tested and (most importantly) PAID FOR. It's just setting there waiting to be taking to the telescope and installed.
Are you Corn Fed?
The big reason I have heard for discontinuing mantanence on the Hubble is it's orbit. If a shuttle goes out to do maintanence and is damaged, the orbit makes it impossible to reach the ISS and difficult to do anything else to save the crew.
This signiture copied from somewhere.
You can have them all!
Tell me, what will you do with them?
A close friend of mine is an astronomer in Arizona and her primary means of gathering data is the Hubble. She recently accepted a position in Colorado to continue her work with Hubble data and a new instrument called COS planned to be placed on Hubble. Since NASA's announcement, though, the COS portion of the project has been put on hold and COS funding has lost about $1 million.
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.
NASA wants to keep Hubble going. So they whine that they haven't got the money. Eventually, Congress gives them more money.
I'll only be impressed when they manage to photograph Helms Deep.
Tell me, what will you do with them?
Why sell them on eBay of course
hubble has got some huge mirrors....maybe we should look into turning the to-be retired telescope into a high powered laser. we could pick off distant planets that we dont like, or perhaps when (notice i said when) we find bin laden we could use it to cook his ass from space. i guess the only question you really have to ask is: why wouldn't we want a super high powered laser floating in space?
Is it me or if you look at this you can see a pattern of concentric circles?
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
Hi Mr. Flamebait.
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.
Random and weird software I've written.
Here's a link to the original Deep Field Image: Original Deep Field Image
http://savethehubble.org/
If they are willing to take the risk to finish ISS, there is no good reason not to fix Hubble.
Write your congressman.
Blaze a trail to the New World
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.
You have a short memory.
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.
The James Webb scope will have a much larger mirror, much faster camera, could be put on an orbit to allow evacuating the shuttle crew to Fred, and perhaps not have the problem of failing gyros every year or so.
To the mod who modded this down: RTFA, you asshat. The picture looks like f*ing sprinkles. Parent is not Offtopic, it's Funny.
By current knowledge the spaceshuttle is "unsafe", because a very serious accident happened. But by current knowledge your car is "unsafe" too, because in all likelihood, very serious accidents happened with your (model/year) car too.
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 ?
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
because they are *morons*... my wife is an astronomer and i have a lot of friends in the field. everyone seems outraged by this... it seems as if there are simple "marketing" reasons for scrapping the hubble telescope:
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, 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...
Never throw an old pair of shoes away until you have a new one.
I understand that the deep field is a narrow view, but could somebody please explain the straw length calculation. Why 8 foot instead of 7 or 1?
Thanks in advance.
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
which one of those flashes of light is the webserver going up the flames?
they are looking for sco code in linux
I agree that Hubble is still the best system out there, and probably the best thing for optical astronomy since the reflector telescope was invented. However, at what expense should it be maintained?
If the hard, cold, budgetary facts state clearly that we can't replace it with an even better (non-flawed) solution unless we discontinue support of the old one first, isn't the decision pretty simple?
Any generalization is a stupid one.
It wasn't easy, but with those 11.3 MB images and all thos cool hi-res videos. WE have finally done it. NASA beware the power of ./
If Slashdot was around in ancient time, we would have called this the slashcratia (cratia coming from the latin POWER)
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
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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. ;)
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
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
No Edge, No Centre
Will better images ever show the edge of the universe?
How old is the universe? Finite or infinite? Have an edge?
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
I can't get all that emotional about Hubble. Yes, it sucks that we won't have a space telescope, but it sucks worse that we -- as in the US -- won't have manned access to space rather shortly unless we get our asses in gear on the next-gen STS.
The thing is, there's a much better replacement coming up. It's called the James Webb Space Telescope. It'll be put in an L2 orbit, and from what I can gather, will put Hubble to shame.
So yeah, between 2008 and 2011 there'll be a gap. But as far as saving Hubble, what can I say: satellites have an expected end of life. Hubble's been up there since 1990. Eighteen years is a damn good run.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
The one problem with that is that the JWST is an infrared and near infrared telescope. 0.6 micron = 600 nm = red light. This won't give any coverage to the rest of the optical spectrum (~380-600 nm).
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.
Help fight continental drift.
So, why exactly was it that NASA wanted to scrap the Hubble?"
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.
-R
It always saddens me to see posts like this get continually modded up so high. Sure, it sounds good because we all like to think of a kindergarten world where life is simpler. You know, the type of place where mom was in the kitchen baking goodies and keeping a watchful eye so we were all nice safe and secure. In this vision, people are all good and like to share. There is plenty for everyone, and there is never, ever a reason to fight.
But then we grow up. we realize the world is complicated. There are bills to pay. Some DO have more than others. Most don't like to share, since they will have less. Worse, there are even bullies who will do more than just throw mud. As an adult, you study history, and supposedly learn that people really aren't all that nice to each other, most of the time. Some people even kill each other. The reasons very. Sometimes it is for simple ideas like power to control another. Usually, the reasons are more complex, spanning from wealth to philosophy. As an adult, you find that world really is complicated, and does not boil down to simple reasons.
Since we are all basically lazy, it would be so much nicer if wars and arguements and other such things had simple roots such as, just that one rich guy wants to be richer. Complicated situations mean complicated answers. When you investigate the cause of things, and think about, I mean really think about, not just nibble on all the sound bites, it turns out that events have a lot of reasons behind them. That, arguements that seem so very black and white when viewed in a microcosim, look less sure when viewed as a part of the greater whole.
I am sure the average reader of these forums, knows and believes these things. But sometimes, in the rush to judge, or form opinions, we type from the heart and not the head. So, it may sound good to say, "I am angry because those in power like to destroy than build." And our instinct is to say, "right on, we should do that." But, as thinking adults we get past this and realize that security is a real issue. The playground is not very safe. Other kids may want to take what you have, in fact, they may even kill you because you have it.
So please, please remember the only reason that we can even have this dialogue is because a few nations were strong enough to provide enough stability to allow a good fraction of the world to be calm. In fact, the only times in history where knowledge, philosophy, and discovery have flourished was under the aegis of a strong nation or empire. History also teaches that every time this strength fades, these periods of reason get swept aside like so much pretty glass in a huricane. In this context, you may want to rethink simple minded suggestions that only science and exploration is worth funding by a society. Otherwise, be careful what you wish for. Do you feel the storm coming?
My two cents,
-Iowa
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
not only as a particularly significant technological achievement as far as human kind looking at the universe around them, or even for just being a cool looking picture... but the fact that this stuff is actually out there boggles my mind.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
You have a short memory.
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.
Galaxies evolved so quickly in the universe that their most important changes happened within a billion years of the big bang. "
Only a cosmologist would call one billion years quick.
The "edge" is defined by frequency redshifting of infinity, where objects are receding at the apparent speed of light, and the universe is infinitely small. The largest redshifts observed last month are an eleven-fold frequency stretch (z=10). Visible light is stretched into deep infra-red. This implies an apparent doppler recession of 98% the speed of light (without including the cosmological constant or acceleration). It gets harder and harder to observe objects as they are more red-shifted.
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---
What can I say Slashdot, I'm so proud of you
What was it? Oh yeah, wget -b -r http://www10.ksc... O:-)
And Apparently there're too many "junk characters" here. Heh.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
The fact that galaxies get "slapped together so quickly" is actually a rather good piece of the evidence for the existence of dark matter. The amount of visible matter in an ordinary galaxy (or galaxy cluster - most of these simulations are actually done with clusters and not individual galaxies) would actually take quite a bit longer to form than what we observe. These objects form because the occasional bit of the gas in the universe is slightly more dense than the neighboring bits, and that clump will tend to attract other bits by gravity and grow. The growth rate gets faster as the clump gets bigger (and hence exerts a stronger gravitational pull). We can get an idea of the size of the original "clumps" in the gas by looking at the patters of hot and cold spots in the cosmic microwave background (the leftover "heat" of the early universe), and they're not big enough for galaxies and clusters to form so quickly. Here's where dark matter comes in. If there's extra "stuff" in the universe that isn't visible, then galaxies are actually a lot heftier than they seem and are able to grow much faster. There's a lot more to it than that, but this is the basic idea.
In the space.com article, there is some truly astonishing information about the sensitivity of these instruments:
Photons of light from the very faintest objects arrived at a trickle of one photon per minute, as opposed to millions of photons per minute from nearer galaxies.
Um, wow. I think they will be hard pressed to find objects fainter than these.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a tool for showing the flaws in fundamentalist dogma -- and understandign what Hubble does requires thinking, an act that makes Mr. Bush's head hurt, I suspect.
If Bush and his handlers have their way, the U.S. will become a theocracy like Iran.
All about me
Because it's making the creationists uncomfortable.
(try to debate them in a friendly setting and see how they jump through loops....)
hey Mr. Flamebait! :P
that ain't always possible, smart guy
You can argue all you please about how Hubble is out-of-date and needs cancellation, but the real experts will disagree with you. Astronomers are quite irate about the Hubble's cancellation, and rightly so. Politicians should not dictate how NASA spends its paltry budget - and doubly so in an election year when your poll numbers are looking grim.
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
I believe there's a statement from the UK's Royal Astronomical Society there, too.
I have to wonder...
None of the galaxies in this image seems different in color from something like Andromeda. Are these images manipulated? perhaps all colors shift and while some dissapear into the infrared you see new ones coming in from the ultraviolet?
They want to scrap Hubble because unlike the rest of NASA's projects Hubble has almost all the bugs worked out.
(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 for a primer on what's so important about the lyman alpha line.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
I put her ass to sleep.
I like the Hubble, but I've feeling an orbit boosting won't do much good. I don't know exactly how many working gyroscopes are left on board, but I think only one or two more can break before Hubble is useless unless they are replaced. They are at the end of their expected lifetime, but lets hope that they can last out for a lot longer.
MacOS X, I've upped my standards, Up Yours...
1) SM4 was canceled due to cost, we believe SM4 can extend the useful life of Hubble 4 or 5 years. Not True! 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 are slowly failing.
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! 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 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.
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!
Well they're still a few hundred million light years from seeing the Resuarant at the end of the universe yet, so when they do, that will be the end of the universe....
.....or will it?
MacOS X, I've upped my standards, Up Yours...
a voice yelling... KKKKKKKKKKAaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnn n
If you download the illustration showing the location of the HUDF in the sky, you get a graphic with the southern sky, the Earth, Hubble rotating around it and rays projecting out from the telescope to the location of the field, at about 28 degrees of south declination from the look of it.
But the picture looks like Hubble is over the pacific, shooting over the North Pole of the earth, not down into the southern celestial hemisphere at all.
These are supposed to be the Nasa Rocket Scientists.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
If Hubble is in a dangerous orbit, why can't NASA design a space tug to move it to a safer orbit? Should NASA have a space tug by now anyway, it is 2004.
Have y'all noticed the increase in the number of headlines about Hubble lately? Do you think that NASA is on a PR offensive to get their space shuttle budget increased by showing the public what a valuable tool Hubble is?
Just my $0.02 ($0.03 CAD)
- Thomas;
___ This sig is in boldface to emphasize its importance!
As for the next part, the great thing about telescopes is that the don't have to be identical to contribute to the same image. Any number of telescopes looking at the same object will contribute linearly in proportion to their mirror area. Telescopes have to account for the rotation of the earth all the time, even on exposures of just a few minutes. If you don't believe me, try taking a long exposure photograph of the night sky and you'll see a streaking effect of the stars. You can put these telescopes in arrays such as the two Keck 10m, and as long as you're looking at a stable object that's not going through rapid change, it doesn't matter when you take exposures. They could be weeks apart.
It gets even better though. We've constructed huge radio 'telescopes' as the VLA and VLBA which has elements in Hawaii and the eastern US. These are arrays of multiple dishes all pointing at the same object. A few number crunches later, the overall effect is our ability to observe insanely large wavelengths of light, wavelengths almost the size of earth! We're more cabable than you might think, and we most certainly have NOT lost any collective will, whatever that means.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
There are also 2 or 3 dead gyros on Hubble currently. That's a much bigger problem than the (mostly corrected) mirror issue.
Fred probably refers to the old name for ISS, Freedom. That name has since been deprecated, I believe, and the ISS's name is currently Alpha.
(different AC from the first one)
No argument about Webb being tecnically superior to Hubble. However, there's two problems.
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 has never been operationally tested - we never did conclusively figure out why Gallileo's main antenna didn't deploy - what if Webb does the same? What if the cryogenic dewar springs a leak or outgasses faster than anticipated? What if any number of a million possible things go wrong and the Webb doesn't work We can't fix it at L2 so we're now stuck with a dead telescope. We should at least keep Hubble running until Webb is properly running.
i can't believe that someone puts forth such antiscientific falsehoods as fact, and gets modded up for interesting. there is a fourth possibility that you missed: you don't know anything about cosmology. the age of the universe has been pinned down at 13.7 Billion years. it is also extremely flat. we expect that even if the universe is closed, there are many many Hubble volumes, and so no matter how far we see, we will never see anything like an "edge". in fact, the Cosmological principle, which has significant experimental evidence, posits that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic. this explicitly rules out anything like an "edge". nevertheless, an infinitely large flat universe is still possible, even with a finite age and a big bang. this is cosmology 101. if you do not understand cosmology, that is fine, but you should instead make a question to try to understand better, instead of lying.
All those galaxies visable there probably don't exist anymore, at least not in anything resembling their original form. Since that time those galaxies have merged multiple times.
And, due to the speed of the universe expansion, I believe there is no way for us to reach those galaxies. If we travled toward them or sent a signal, most of those galaxies will be receeding away at faster than the speed of light as the signal/thing got closer and thus not "catchable". (They would appear to be "frozen in time" and fading into the lower spectrum from perspective of the signal.)
Thus, if Darth Vader lives there now, he cannot bother us (unless he finds a way to go faster than light, which perhaps is not possible).
Table-ized A.I.
Forgive my ignorance if I'm way off... but is it not possible to do UV work in areas where we have an ozone hole? I was under the (possibly mistaken) impression that the ozone layer is what is keeping UV light out.. so if we have areas where there are no or limited amounts of ozone, would it not allow useful UV from space in to the proper insturments?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
NASA might be like a few of my users who wanted new computers.
A couple of my user's computers were older but still useable. But they explained to me how these old systems needed to be put out to pasture because couldn't get their work done(according to them). They really just wanted a shiny new toy...a new p4 or opteron system.
funny...both those computers had mysterious failures a few weeks later. hmmmmmm...
then why get rid of it?
That's like if my old Pentium II 300 Mhz system still works great without problems, then why do I need to dump it or replace it? It still does my job done (e.g., emails, word processor, etc.) It still can be a server or something. Crazy NASA.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
"So, why exactly was it that NASA wanted to scrap the Hubble?"
Because the response to the Columbia tragedy has been fear and organizational tunnel vision. NASA is now reluctant to launch the shuttle into any orbital inclination in which there is not a manned craft to serve as an emergency lifeboat (read - ISS).
I call this tunnel vision because NASA's safety efforts are now focused on averting a disaster that results in a safe launch but a predictable reentry failure. This is a rather narrow range of potential problems, and definately not worth the HST in terms of how expensive it is to pursue this safety strategy.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
NASA has decided to never again launch the shuttle orbiter into an orbit which cannot fail to the space station. Since the Space station is in an orbit which goes to high latitudes in order to accomodate access from Russian launch sites, the space station and Hubble are in incompatible orbits (given the amount of orbital manuvering propellant on board). :-(
There are plans for other space telescopes, but there may be a gap when Hubble fails.
hi.
/OF
>So, why exactly was it that NASA wanted to scrap the Hubble?
Because everyone wants to go to the history. And a president goes there by doing things that are big and expensive.
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.
The mirror has a slight spherical abberation. It's slightly undercorrected IIRC. The lens COMPLETELY fixes this. It's every bit as good as it was designed to be.
I don't understand why everyone is getting so bent. The year after they lower Hubble into a firey grave they are planning on launching a replacement observatory that is supposed be considerably more powerfull. Sure it was the first to show us deep space but it is after all expendable and was never planned on being used for a few years anyway.
Though I do get your point, it's the Universe that expands, but the horizon recedes.
I always wanted to download a 61 meg jpg. It would have been better if it was gay pr0n. but i'm sure we'll get there some day...leave it to the pr0n industry to innovate...and microsoft to copy...hmm...i wonder if a 61 meg windows logon screen is on the way.
All your preview button are belong to Hello Kitty.
I suspect that Bush is pushing to cut down manned shuttle missions because if one fails between now and November it would hurt his re-election chances. And that he is pushing Moon/Mars Manned Missions (M/MMM) to try to get the science geek vote.
But I further suspect that once he is re-elected, he'll find some good reason to just cancel everything in sight to save money. Including M/MMM and the projected L2 space telescope. If anything is kept, it is likely to be support for the military in space. Probably he'll suggest we all go for "Faith Based Space Exploration" - meaning wait for the Apocalypse and when we all go flying up into heaven, we'll get a chance to look at the stars. Before being fingerprinted and classified by Ashcroft Angels.
Look at the age of the shuttle and most of the military jets the US uses these days. Other than a few exceptions there isn't an airframe that was developed less than 30 years ago. It is the logical time now to maybe cut back on the science a bit and put some more money into developing capability, as we are now hitting the edge of how far some of the technologies can be pushed, that were developed during the last big aerospace subsidies from the 60's.
Could someone start a BT(BitTorrent) of the 6200x6200 full resolution image? I will gladly donate my 20+ kb/s for a day or two...
If what you are reading sounds funny, or sarcastic, lame, or stupid
it is because it is supposed to be. just laugh
Anyone else think that if they decide to scrap it and it goes ahead, that they should take a deep field picture as far as is capable by the scope?
;)
I am unsure how long it would take for the exposure. (anyone out there figured out how long it would take?)
I mean an image just after the 'dark ages' ended
Someone out there really hates Kant or Descarte or Hobbes. :-\
--- Ban humanity.
Say, build one telescope array at the lunar north pole and one array at the lunar south pole. Between the two of them, you'd see the entire sky, and because they would be terrain based rather than orbiting platforms, they could be _ENOURMOUS_, and see orders of magnitude further into space than the Hubble ever could have hoped to.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_sp
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Because Curious George(Bush) wants to get to mars and NASA needs to pony up a large chunck of change
There are also 2 or 3 dead gyros on Hubble currently
Two currently. Part of the repair mission would be to fix/replace them. There are 6 gyros on Hubble and 3 are required for proper operation. Useful article here.
And, yes, the gyros are a big problem. The gyro failures are the entire reason that Hubble will fail if not serviced -- the optics and other electronics are working just fine, but they're worthless if you can't hold steady on a target. IIRC, there's only a 15% chance that Hubble will remain functional at all by 2008 without gyro replacement.
The gyros are failing a bit faster than expected, but even at the outset they only had a 4-6 year lifespan. Ongoing maintainence was part of the plan for Hubble.
Can anyone look at that image and REALLY think we are the ONLY intelligent life out there? REALLY??
I mean sure, I guess we could be, but man it just doesn't seem like theres NOTHING else out there.
http://ehpg.net/~cradly/jpg/hudf-3200x1200.jpg
http://ehpg.net/~cradly/jpg/hudf-1600x1200.jpg
http://ehpg.net/~cradly/jpg/hudf-1280x1024.jpg
http://ehpg.net/~cradly/jpg/hudf-1024x768.jpg
http://ehpg.net/~cradly/jpg/hudf-800x600.jpg
the problem is that the ISS (as others have said) requires 25 flights for servicing and completion, meaning those deathtraps are going to have plenty of time to kill astronauts with or without Hubble. As a bonus (as someone else said here) the orbit of the ISS presumably renders repairs even less safe than those to Hubble - thus the ISS is less safe, both on a per-mission and (by far) on an overall basis.
the other problem is that Hubble can't be knocked out of orbit safely - it doesn't have that capability (it doesn't have thrusters - someone else on this thread). Thus someone is going up there, whether just to knock it down or to add thrusters and repair it. Once that happens, the marginal cost of returning Hubble to working order versus bringing it down is not so large, and doesn't incur nearly as much of a cost to the astronauts as the the ISS will (for less science output, since its mission had to be altered drastically for the Russioans to help put it up).
My dislike of GWB and his policies doesn't matter in this case.
In a deeply embedded comment it was said that maintenance of Hubble would be about $200 million / year.
Given that the interstate lottery is paying about about $200 million every six months and that people allow number-crunching scientific computations (project names withheld) on their own computers, I wonder if NASA could benefit from the public, which to at least some extent is interested in science, by fundraising from it directly rather than indirectly through federal tax money.
(OTOH i, too, can understand that some projects must die in order for new ones to emerge.)
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
NASA want to stop maintaing the Hubble because it's too expensive. We're talking half a billion dollars just for the shuttle launch alone.
Well, have they put it out to tender? Maybe someone else can do it cheaper. Economically even.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Listen, dipshit, this is analysis carried out by NASA. Someone at NASA anonomously leaked the analysis documents to the public which directly contradicts NASA's public stance. How about RTFA before calling FUD. Both documents can be accessed from the Mars society website and probably other places as well. Try actually reading those documents - oh wait, that would get in the way of speading your own FUD, nevermind.
The 'lifeboat' capability of ISS is basically illusory. The ISS cannot handle the additional life support load of a shuttle-load of astronauts on top of its exiting crew. Even if the shuttle can succesfully dock at ISS after being damaged, you do not have a meaningful extension of the amount of time to repair the shuttle/launch a rescue mission. If you read below, a Hubble mission has the option of having another shuttle ready to go up for a rescue mission in a few days. This is not possible with the ISS. It is possible that the Russians could start doing a Soyuz lifeboat brigade but each Soyuz can carry 3 people, IIRC. Assume an ISS crew of 3 and then a shuttle crew of 6. Thats two seperate soyuz launches and using the lifeboat Soyuz to get everyone off. NASA is already very concerned about the life support systems on the ISS. The implicit conclusion of the leaked reports is that there is a significant probability of life support failure with that many people on board. Can the Russians get two seperate launches up to ISS fast enough to deal with a life support failure? Possible but by no means guaranteed.
If you opt to repair the damage, the Hubble and ISS missions will have the same capabilites - the Hubble servicing mission isn't planned until after the damage inspection and repair fixes are planned to be implemented anyways. The planned repair capability is planned to be on the shuttle, not the ISS which means that the ISS gives no advantages in being able to do repairs. It is noteworthy that the Columbia was lost due to massive amounts of damage to the wing. The shuttles have flown with large amounts of damage to the thermal control system before and been fine. (over 3000 instances of tile damage >1 inches in diameter have been recorded) The shuttle even returned several times with missing tiles and once with a damaged area 10x20 inches in size. Barring massive damage like on Columbia, in flight repairs are quite realistic.
If you have to go in and do a rescue mission, the Hubble repair mission actually has a huge advantage. The Hubble repair mission can be launched right before an ISS mission - allowing a second shuttle to be prepped and ready to launch. That second shuttle can be quickly retasked to do a rescue if the Hubble mission has problems. You can't do that with an ISS mission since it would require having the next ISS mission ready to go before launching - then the third mission would have to be prepped before the second flight could depart - and so on. With only 3 active shuttles, this is basically impossible. Therefore, ISS missions don't have a rescue option.
Even worse, although the total space debris impact probability is about the same in both orbits, going to the ISS greatly reduces the ability of the Shuttle to maneuver to avoid incoming debris. Therefore, the danger of debilitating debris damage going to the ISS is higher than going to the Hubble. This notably includes a significantly higher danger of imacts that would depressurize the crew cabin. The estimated probability of 'critical' impact damage during the completion of ISS is worse than 1 in 12. As for adding the Hubble repair mission - quote, "It is noteworthy to observe that the
collective odds of thermal control system critical damage for the remaining 25 flights
to complete the assembly of the ISS are not significantly increased with the addition of
one HST Servicing Mission from the current value of 1 in 11.6."
All of the above is taken *directly* from NASA's own analysis of the situation. If Hubble did actually pose a significant risk to astrona
....on the "advancing ideological goals" thing? I'm not seeing it. The stem cell issue comes to mind, for one.
I suggest me adds it to his campaign platform: keep Hubble, scrap the humans-on-mars-by-way-of-the-moon fantasy, bring stem cell research back to the US, and teach all the children how to pronounce nuclear properly.
sorry i'm a tard
I think your comment deserves more than a 3. I have wondered myself how much it would cost to clone Hubble and launch it on one of the new boosters (Delta IV heavy or Atlas V). Both have 5m payload sections and a state of the art visual light telescope with a segmented mirror would be lighter and less expensive than Hubble.
an ill wind that blows no good
It was politics, ie Bush's men on mars initiative, that led to O'Keefe's decision to cancel Hubble's servicing mission. Let's not give up now that O'Keefe is starting to feel some political pressure. At http://SaveHubble.org we are working on polling all of congress. How about some of you slashdot readers give us a hand contacting them?
GOATSE
It has been a long day.....
Thanks for the link, I now see what you mean!
Yes, that's definitely scattered light in the optical halo. My feeling is that it is scattered light from the corrective lenses, and not the primary and secondary mirrors, because if it was due to mirror aberrations, it would be achromatic, and not the bright blue colour it is in the photo.
Working at the diffraction limit you CAN see that the diffraction due to the spider arms is rainbow coloured, which is expected for a diffraction limited telescope with secondary spiders.
The stellar cores are also wildly overexposed, so I suspect that the blue light scattered halo is only a percent or so of the total flux from each star. Nice image for an example!
Cheers,
Dr Fish
Look friend, manned spaceflight is THE REASON for the space program. If we aren't planning to put a colony on the moon, mars, etc. and move humankind off this rock then I couldn't give a tinkers damn about what's up there. We might as well just kill ourselves off and let some species with a little more imagination and moxie supercede us.
The chemical composition, humidity levels, metallic content, or geological evolution of the other planets is worth absolutely nothing to us unless we intend to exploit those places at sometime in the future. Pretty pictures of the stars are cute and they give some astronomers a good feeling, but they don't do jack to address any real needs here on Earth. And if we're just going to sit around on Earth and never go anywhere else then it's time we stopped wasting money on space, cause what does it matter? I happen to believe that 99.9999% of the exploitable wealth, energy and materials we need to fuel a real renaissance for humanity are up there, as well as the space we need to grow a unified culture that appreciates the true value of Earth. So either we start getting moving on, or we continue to spin wheels. If losing Hubble is the price, so be it. If it makes you happy I'll suggest naming the first dark side Lunar observatory "The Hubble Lunar Institute of Astronomy" OK? To my mind that's a dream worth risking lives for, but to preserve that ungainly piece of space trash, ferget about it!
What is the deal with all those diffraction spikes? I don't think any of them are foreground Milky Way stars. Would they be QSOs (Quasars)?
If you open your mind too wide, people will throw trash in it.
Senator Barbara Mikulski is also leading some efforts in the Senate as well as a Maryland Delegation, and has a response from O'Keefe.
On the house side we have picked up 5 more co-sponsors.
Ehlers
Markey
Inslee
Cummings Jim Moran
http://SaveHubble.org could use some help with our efforts to poll all of congress on the Hubble issue!
This picture released is pretty much it. You can't go much further in the visible spectrum.
Mmmm... Popcorn... ;^)
You can write President Bush and Sean O'Keefe from our website.
Contact you Congress person and your Senator.
Help SaveHubble.org poll congress!
So if your old Pentium II 300 MHz system was in Haiti and it had flaky DRAM that you predict will probably affect the stability of the system in a month or two, and in anticipation of this you purchased a few more SIMMs (the old kind) a long time ago along and reserved a plane ticket for your best friend to go fix the machine, but then this revolution thing in Haiti came up, would send your best friend to go there and fix it?
Going to Haiti didn't seem too bad when you made the plane reservation, but seems kinda dangerous today (that whole Arastide thing), sort of like going up on a shuttle seems kinda dangerous today for the astronauts after the last one, but not when they originally planned the service mission. You can still use the computer as a server for now as the DRAM hasn't gotten too flakey yet, sort of like the gyros on Hubble are okay for now so it's still useful now.
If you put no value on the risk of going to Haiti, then the decision is easy. If you put a great value on risk of going to Haiti, then the decision is easy. If, however, you are a trying to find middle ground, the decision to send your friend to Haiti to fix your old Pentium II 300MHz is quite a challenging decision...
"Crazy NASA" seems to be making the decision that it likes the best friend, and since it can't guarantee the safety of the friend it'll use the computer as a web server until it dies, but I won't send anyone to Haiti to fix it. It already bought the SIMMs (the new gyros), so it's out that money, but it can cancel the plane ticket and let the airline sell the seat to someone else (another shuttle mission to the ISS).
Perhaps "sane antdude" makes another decision (or something)... I'm not saying that not fixing Hubble is the right decision but letting it go for now certainly isn't crazy...
But that doesn't *really* matter. To see further because of redshifting, we need the infrared range. NASA could still colorize images like they have in the past and make the general public happy. This telescope will give images that are just as good (or better?) as Hubble, though not in the same wavelengths we're accustomed to.
Very good post!
Because if it does then we've put all our eggs in one basket
Par for the course for NASA. They've been doing that ever since they got bitchslapped by the Nixon administration. It's been steadily downhill since. I can't even imagine how disgusted a lot of the people who brought NASA from "can't launch shit" to landing on the moon in a little more than a decade are.
Man, when I was a kid following this (about the time of the forementioned bitchslap) I never thought that it would get this bad.
*weeps*
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
They have two remaining gyros. Initially one failed, that was designed to not be a problem. Then another failed, and again it was designed to keep working. But if another one failed it would be useless, they said. A third one failed, and they were able to work around it. If another one failed, there was no way they could go on. Then the fourth failed, and they installed some complex software trickery to allow it to continue working.
Now, I suppose that 2 may be the ultimate lower limit, but given their track record, I bet they could do some surprising things with only one. Maybe it wouldn't be accurate enough to do what they do today with it, but I suspect many people would still find it useful for a variety of things.
Random and weird software I've written.
i thought that was a filesystem
The Big Bang [Burger Bar] happened when all the matter in the Universe was compressed in one place, got unhappy with the tight quarters, and went *KABOOM*.
Some approximately 300 million years later God flicked his Bic and lit the first stars.
13 Billlllion (as Carl Sagan would say) years later, give or take 15 minutes of fame, that light arrives in the Hubble, get its image transmitted to Earth, and becomes famous on Slashdot.
An additional note: Nothing material travels faster than light.
So here's my problem:
If we all started in the same place,
And that light lit up 300 million years after the Big Bang,
And nothing travels faster than light,
How did it get 13 billion light years away from us in that first 300 million years so that this light could then spend the next 13 billion years traveling back to us again. I just don't get it.
Simple explinations will be preferred over complex ones.
Thank you for your time.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
XXX
The real reason it's being pulled... :)
<tinfoil>
March 9, 2004
The ACS uncovered galaxies that existed 800 million years after the big bang (at a redshift of 7). But the NICMOS may have spotted galaxies that lived just 400 million years after the birth of the cosmos (at a redshift of 12). Thompson must confirm the NICMOS discovery with follow-up research.
July 21, 2004
Hubble's NICMOS may have just spotted galaxies that lived a mere 150 million years after the birth of the cosmos. "We should be seeing something less-defined by now," said Carrot Top's* father, "This would seem to indicate that galaxies form faster than we ever thought possible." Research scientists reacted to the news, "This is the strongest evidence yet for the presence of supersymmetric photino strings," said Ablebaker Charlie of Berkeley, "finally, we have a solid lead on the dark matter that guided galaxy formation in the early universe".
November 10, 2004
LATE BREAKING NEWS: Hubble's new IFDEF camera has picked up the oldest galaxies yet on record. If confirmed, these galaxies would be an astonishing 14.1 billion years old, approximately 400 million years before the creation of the universe. When the news was broken today, theoreticians and science publishers were quick to stat&]/@^@CCC!0__NO CARRIER
</tinfoil> :)
* He's the son of a NASA scientist; go figure :)
Binary geeks can count to 1,023 on their fingers
fundamentalism n : a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles
It is impossible to be both a fundamentalist and also a true scientist; science involves the questioning of ideas, while fundamentalism requires non-thinking acceptance of dogma as fact.
Certainly some fine and excellent people are also Christians -- Donald Knuth, for example, who is one of my personal heroes both as computerist and a person. My lovely and talented wife is both Roman Catholic and a geologist / archaeologist. Some sects of Christianity actually promote the attainment of wisdom via exploration of God's creation.
Mr. Bush, however, wraps himself in fundamentalist Christianity of the Pat Robertson school; he and his cronies have very closed minds, ignoring any part of God's creation that does not conform to their "literal" interpretation of scripture. And as such, he is as dangerous as any fundamentalist Islamic.
Thousands of non-combatant, innocent people have died to provide Mr. Bush with a soundbites for his political commercials; he believes in bloody revenge and personal profit from war waged on behalf of tragic victims. He dishonors the dead by treating them as campaign themes. I doubt Jesus would approve of any of those actions.
Your mileage may vary.
All about me
The problem with the Arianne 5 is that it has a much less than... stellar reliability history.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2569115.stm (note, this is a bit over one year old...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5