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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!
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.
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...
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'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
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.
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
Never throw an old pair of shoes away until you have a new one.
As far as we understand it, there is no "edge" to the universe - at least not one we're expecting to ever be able to see. The universe as we know it has been around for about 13 billion years since the big bang. During that time, light has only been able to travel a certain distance - 13 billion light years (there are some technicalities with the fact that the universe is expanding as the light is traveling, but that's the gist). So we don't expect to ever be able to see farther than that distance, and most theories predict that the universe inflates (expands really fast) early in its life and so is actually much bigger than that distance. So if there is an edge, it's so far away light hasn't had the chance to get here from there. However, we can't even see that far. Earlier in the universe's history, it was much hotter and denser. Until about 300,000 years after the big bang, it was so hot and dense that it was opaque to light - light from before that epoch isn't able to travel very far without scattering, and can't reach our eyes. We can, however, see the last light that was released from the hot, dense gas just as the universe became transparent - this is seen as the cosmic microwave background. After that, the universe was very dark and homogenous - there were no stars or galaxies, and hence nothing for us to see! This period is called the "dark ages", for obvious reasons. After some hundreds of millions of years, gravity caused gas to clump together enough to produce the first stars and galaxies. These are the earliest things (other than the microwave background) that we could hope to study in a telescope picture. Some theories suggest that these might be weird objects - supermassive stars a hundred times bigger than our sun, bizzare protogalaxies, etc. - and they'll definitely teach us a lot about how galaxies form. So it's not the "edge", but it's probably quite near the edge of what we'll ever see.
Well, duh; first off, we're dealing with digital photography. There is no 'real/true colour', it's all composites anyway. Secondly, if you where to see only the visible light spectrum, there wouldn't be much to see.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
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
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.
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!
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.
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...
A Space Shuttle Orbiter is even harder to replace.
The astronauts inside the Orbiter are easier to replace, but harder to place at risk.
I agree absolutely. I have nothing but respect for the astronauts and was devastated by the loss of Columbia.
However, this point has nothing to do with the cacophony of posts by non-experts who feel that Hubble is an obsolete piece of junk. Can any telescope that currently exists reproduce all of the capabilities of Hubble? No.
Your points are mostly correct, however you missed his comment to OWL - Overwhelmingly Large Telescope ; which is designed to be 100 meters in diameter. While it's true that without hubble you lose quite some ultraviolet, the OWL I believe has a far superior lightgathering and angular resolution by a large margin. And will allow very important research to be done. Now I don't know really if you could only get one of these telescopes, or which astronomers would rate more useful for the short term. That's up to them to figure out and try to arrange funding for.
Quickshot
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.
You are thinking of a 3-dimensional explosion / expansion.. everything moving away from some central point. This is not what is going on at all, though.
This is a 4-dimensional explosion / expansion.. everything is moving away from everything else.. there is no "middle". Or, if you like, any observer is smack in the middle of his own observable universe.
There center is you. The edge is the distance travelled at the speed of light times the age of the universe. Speculating on what "might" exist outside of that is irrelevant, if it is outside that boundary, it is not in your universe, and nothing happening there has any effect on your observable universe (which is expanding at this moment). IN fact to speak of it as a "place" where things could be is even erroneous.. the farther away we look, the farther back in time we are also looking. To think of it as a 3 dimensional boundary that we could just go to the edge of might seem logical at first, but in fact it's totally and competely inaccurate to think of it that way.