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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?"
Uh, er, uh. No.
These images are seeing further than we've ever seen before because Hubble is using a more sensitive camera than the previous HDF. It's not because they sat on our butts for a few years and the 'horizon' expanded.
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.
True, but the AREN'T PLANNING ANY. The only space telescope on the drawing board is the James Webb scope, and it's an IR scope. There's nothing even in the planning stages for a replacement for Hubble.
The truth is, the Hubble is still very capable, in fact more so than when it was launched. It needs new batteries and gyros, and as long as we're there, some new science instruments, and it'll keep going happily for a long time to come yet.
If new batteries and gyros are put on board, they'll last even longer; the new ones are capable of lasting far longer than the originals.
Not true. The point of the article is Ultra Deep Field imagery. Doing this requires focusing on a single point in space for long periods of time (In this case, 11.3 days) While not theoretically impossible to accomplish on earth, this would require building nearly identical telescopes worldwide and then coordinating their exposures to account for the rotation of the earth and then adapting for more variables than I have the patience to explain. For all practical purposes this is not going to happen in our lifetimes
Furthermore this highly unlikely arrangement will never have the resolution, versatility, and usefulness for other types of astronomy as the Hubble.
The horrible truth is that we are simply losing the collective will to achieve great things in the name of achieving cockamamie political boondoggles, both terrestrial and otherwise.
The optical is boring and scientifically uninteresting? Sorry, but you're just plain wrong! Sure, maybe you can't see the most red-shifted "foo" galaxy, but with STIS (the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph) we can obtain optical/near UV spectra which contain an enormous number of ionised metal transitions. This gives us a heap of information about things like the formation of the milky way, the interiors of white dwarves and many other things. Also, the oversubscription rate of hubble gives a good indication on how valuable scientists think it is.
:-) But then, what is scientifically interesting is a matter partially of opinion and partially of what's "in vogue". Ten years ago nobody cared much about stars or the solar system. Now the stellar crowd is close to finding the first stars formed in the milky way (population III stars) and the solar system kids are in big demand because they know how planets work (extra-solar planets anyone?).
Of course, I'm completely biased in that part of my Phd work is based on STIS work
As a cynical thought on JWST, don't underestimate the capacity for de-scoping the mission. It's happened already and is biting big projects (especially space-based ones) quite a bit in recent times. But maybe I'm just too pessismistic...
$AUS0.02
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.
My question is: why service the Hubble with a super-expensive shuttle flight? How much would it cost to build a replacement and launch it on a standard rocket?
We always hear about how much the Hubble cost, but I'm guessing that a lot of that was development costs. They still have the blueprints; how much could it cost to dust them off and build a quick clone?
I would imagine that they could build a shiny new Hubble and launch it on an expendable rocket for less than the cost of a manned service mission to the old one. The key to keeping costs down would be to avoid the strong temptation to spend more money on "improving" the original design.