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?"

Comments

Why scrap Hubble

[scumbucket]

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

Re:Why scrap Hubble

[FortKnox]

Actually, a congressman from Colorado is trying to get a commitee together to determine the fate of the Hubble, so the decision is not solely on the director of NASA. This could mean life for the Hubble.

I submitted the 'save the hubble' story a couple days ago and was turned down.

Re:Why scrap Hubble

[EinsteinWasRight]

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.

Re:Why scrap Hubble

[Tackhead]

> Actually, a congressman from Colorado is trying to get a commitee together to determine the fate of the Hubble, so the decision is not solely on the director of NASA. This could mean life for the Hubble.

Why must Hubble die? It's producing too much science, and not consuming enough pork dollars.

End of story. Hubble will die, we'll build a reusable shuttle that still can't go beyond low earth orbit, we'll spend tens of billions turning the existing shuttles into unmanned cargo lifters inferior to present unmanned launch vehicles, and we'll do it all to preserve the ISS.

Vote for me! I promise a chicken in every pot, a subcontractor in every district! And no pesky science to get in the way of your religious beliefs!

Re:Why scrap Hubble

[UnknowingFool]

So, why exactly was it that NASA wanted to scrap the Hubble?

NASA doesn't want to scrap the Hubble. They have to scrap the Hubble. Really it boils down to $$ and resources. Their funding is being cut severely and they have to choose which projects to keep going. With the Hubble costing them $$ in new parts and shuttle visits for maintenance, cutting it has the highest impact.

Re:Why scrap Hubble

[maxpublic]

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

As reported recently in the news, this was refuted by two independent engineering teams *within NASA*. At which point NASA changed its tune and said that servicing the Hubble was too dangerous for the astronauts.

Although recently *another* leak from inside NASA claimed that repairs to the Hubble were no more dangerous than any one of the 25 planned missions to complete the space station.

There doesn't seem to be a good reason to abandon Hubble. Which makes me think that the real reason has far more to do with politics and budget appropriations than anything else.

Max

Re:Why scrap Hubble

[RodRandom]

Overall, the problem with NASA is that it has to keep doing "clowns in space" to maintain its funding. Space Station; manned missions to Mars, space stations on the Moon--there are much cheaper (and far more effective) ways of doing the revolutionary science that is NASA's great legacy.

How ironic that the occasional shuttle mission to service the scientifically invaluable Hubble should be considered too expensive when compared with the continuing Disney extravaganza of manned space exploration that is deemed indispensable.

Re:Why scrap Hubble

[V_M_Smith]

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.

This is absolutely 100% false. The Hubble UDF image was taken over the span of several months, not over 11.3 days of consecutive orbits. Stacking images from earthbound telescopes taken over several different days/months is a standard astronomical practice. No special equipment (i.e. a worldwide distributed network of telescopes) is required to do this.

As for not having the versatility of Hubble -- there are many terrestrial observatories that are far more versatile (and accessible!) than HST. It all depends on the sort of observing you're doing.

Re:Why scrap Hubble

[amightywind]

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 James Webb Telescope will be launched in 2010. It will greatly exceed Hubble in capability, especially in the infrared. Without servicing the Hubble shouldn't fail until 2007. Is it regretable the there is a gap between the two missions? Yes. Is it worth $1G to service Hubble with a shuttle flight? No.

Re:Why scrap Hubble

[Agent Orange]

As many other people have pointed out elsewhere, hubble has a 2m DIFFRACTION-LIMITED primary mirror. You work out the resolution. 1.22*lambda/diamter. This is still far better than the best astronomical sites (seeing at mauna kea and paranal gets down to about 0.5 arcsec at best). Even with adaptive optics, you're not gonna get there. So no, a ground-based telescope won't get you the same result.

Add to this, that hubble can get into the near UV, which is almost completely absorbed by the atmosphere.

You seem to be trying to describe and interferometer, which is a _completely_ different instrument and there is absolutely NO WAY an optical interferometer would work over such enormous baselines. 100m is really hard. thousands of kilometres? forget it!

Re:Why scrap Hubble

[Waffle Iron]

Is it worth $1G to service Hubble with a shuttle flight? No

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.

Re:Why scrap Hubble

[shadowbearer]

I've wondered that myself.

I would hope, at least, that they would improve the electronics and construction materials. Lots of advances in those field since Hubble was designed & built two decades ago.

Doing so is probably not trivial, but it's not a full redesign either.

Heck, with the advances in manufacturing, we could probably get three new Hubbles for the price of one. I bet there's a lot of astronomers/astrophyscists out there who'd give a lot for better access to a Hubble.
Now what would really be interesting is if NASA could hold a public fundraiser to offset costs and launch a Hubble II that would allow access by amateur astronomers... :)

Oh, and the Ultra DF is amazing. I thought the first Deep Field was astounding, but this one ... holy, moley....

SB

What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[jridley]

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.

Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[barawn]

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.

You're wrong. The JWST will cover some of the optical, just not up through blue. Why?

Because the optical is boring. Scientifically, it's not interesting. Deep-field objects are redshifted, and so naturally a big telescope will concentrate on the longer wavelengths.

Besides, go look at some of the pictures that Spitzer has put out. They look gorgeous. They're fake color, sure, but who cares? In fact a lot of this stuff is redshifted, as I mentioned, so you're not even looking at it in "real" light anyway.

The JWST is a replacement telescope to Hubble. Some features of Hubble's - like the ability to see in the blue band - just isn't that important for science right now.

and it'll keep going happily for a long time to come yet.

This is, of course, naive. Hubble is a space telescope, and it's already pockmarked from space debris. It's just a matter of time until Hubble is damaged beyond repair.

It was never meant to last forever. Let it die.

Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[barawn]

Also, I have never heard NASA say that the Hubble is just old and worn out. They say it's too risky to go up for another servicing mission.

It's not too risky. They could do it if they wanted to. They'd simply have to recertify the shuttles specifically to do it, and what they're saying is that the excess cost to do that is not worth the limited science that Hubble would do in the remaining years it has left.

In other words, Hubble is too expensive to keep running. That makes it uneconomical now.

The main problem with the controversy is that there are emotions involved, and that makes for very bad decision-making. Any of the advocates for Hubble always push the emotional attachment to Hubble, rather than the simple by-the-numbers math.

Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[Abcd1234]

Because the optical is boring.

To some degree, this is true. But the UV spectrum is *very* interesting, as it can be used for, amongst other things, detecting organic compounds in distant objects. Well, guess what, the JWST doesn't cover UV, either, and neither does any other telescope currently available, since the UV is only reachable from space.

The fact is, the Hubble and JWST instruments are *complementary*. The Hubble can still do a lot of valuable science, and shutting it down for supposed budgetary reasons is just plain silly, IMHO.

Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[Agent Orange]

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.

Of course, I'm completely biased in that part of my Phd work is based on STIS work :-) 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?).

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

Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[Agent Orange]

Yes, hubble and JWST are complementary, but it's not strictly true to say that hubble is the only UV tool around. FUSE - the Far UV Spectroscopic Explorer, has been up there and operating since 1999, run by johns hopkins (literally across the street from STScI).

It has a bit of life left in it, but covers the Far-UV, while STIS aboard hubble covers the near UV. So between FUSE, hubble and JWST, you get continuous (spectroscopic) coverage from the FarUV to the IR.

And it's hard to IR from the ground too, just like the UV.

Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[victorvodka]

I'd much rather see that Hubble money going into invading random countries here on Earth. Hell, don't they know that space is just a illusion by the Devil to convince us the world is more than six thousand years old?

Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[Uncertain Bohr]

Moderators need explain how your got rated a 4 for your silly reply.
NGST is most certainly not a replacement for Hubble. And to say that optical is boring shows how very vert little to know of the science which is being done with HST and which will not be able to be done EVER again until another 2m class optical telescope gets put into orbit or optical ground based adaptive optics catches on (which will never happen because of the athmosphereic absorption). JWST was proposed, not as a replacement to JWST, but as the near mile stone. This was assuming that 1) NGST would launch in 2007 (not 2011 as it is now) 2) that HST would be up and going fine until after JWST is launched and a replacement for HST is being build.

HST IS top of the line. I dare you to find any instruments anywhere which are more top of the line right now, inside a space telescope. HST was meant to be serviceable so that it could be kept up to date and equipped with the latest detectors as these are made available. This was done with SM3b and was planned to be done once more with SM4.

As for letting it die... this is equivalent to never changing the oil in your car because you will likely crash it one day, a better one will surely be available at some point in the future, and you just ordered a new boat which is bigger than your car and can therefore surely do everything your car does but better.

It makes absolutely no sense whatsover to let HST die right now. It is mismanagment on the part of NASA and from a small group of people who are more interested in politics than science.

Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[barawn]

Moderators need explain how your got rated a 4 for your silly reply.

Because JWST is an medium optical, near infrared, and far infrared telescope, not an IR scope as the parent said, and therefore it is informative?

NGST is most certainly not a replacement for Hubble.

It is in the deep-field category, which is where all the pretty-picture enthusiasts are pushing.

optical ground based adaptive optics catches on

Catches on? I think just about everyone agrees that optical AO is the obvious next step - hence the thirty-meter-telescope (TMT) and many other AO projects.

I'll agree with you that in the UV, Hubble doesn't have a match out there yet. But JWST doesn't serve a complimentary role to HST, it supersedes it in a lot of Hubble's operational capacity.

Honestly, with this servicing mission, how long do you think Hubble will last? 10 years? And how much will it cost? Considering they need to recertify the shuttles specifically to do this task, and have a backup shuttle ready in case something goes wrong... I don't think most people fully understand the excess cost that would need to go into it.

I'm not saying that Hubble isn't a good observatory. It is. What I'm saying is that scientists never expected Hubble to last forever, and they have planned past it (for crying out loud, there are conferences that are basically called "Life After Hubble").

Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[jridley]

Just FYI, there is currently no safe plan for deorbiting Hubble. It has NO retros. It steers based completely on reaction wheels which are incapable of altering the orbit, they can only repoint the scope.

So, some kind of mission to the scope is going to be necessary if it's to be safely de-orbited. And if we're going there anyway, and we have new equipment ALREADY BUILT for it, why not bolt on the de-orbit retros, and at the same time put in the new equipment and reboost it, and get another 5 years out of the old dog?

Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[elwinc]

The JWST is a replacement telescope to Hubble. Some features of Hubble's - like the ability tosee in the blue band - just isn't that important for science right now.

Wow. I'm in awe. With "insight" like that, who needs science?

Here's a little basic physics for you: when hydrogen ionizes and recombines, it emits photons at a discrete series of wavelengths known as the Lyman series. The brightest line is the H 1 Lyman alpha, at 121.6 nm -- the brightest line from the most common element (99%) in the universe. When redshifted, this line often ends up in blue band, where the JWST can't see. If you're wondering what it's useful for, just google for lyman alpha forest. On the other hand, don't bother -- you're quite happy with the opinions you have; why change them?

Re:What's this whining about scrapping hubble

[barawn]

I'm frankly appalled that someone with even a passing knowledge of astrophysics, much less a degree in the subject, would issue a blanket statement like "the optical is boring."

Yah, yah, I know. The post was something like 4 lines long - it wasn't intended to be in depth. I was actually saying that the optical is boring with reference to JWST, which is correct - JWST is a deep-field scope, and deep-field high-optical/UV isn't nearly as useful as deep/far infrared.

It was a bit of a short-tempered post because I hate it when people refer to the JWST as "just an" infrared telescope. It's not. It's optimized for infrared, definitely, but that's where big mirror, huge collection area, long integration times are most important, and that's what I was trying to say.

And what of the 9x oversubscription rate on HST itself? Do you honestly think all those observations, or even a large majority, are in the limited wavelength regime that NGST/JWST will have in common with HST?

I think a lot of them are. (Specifically I think that this one - the ultra deep field - is, and I'd be correct). I do agree that losing Hubble's UV is bad. I had hoped that the MIDEX AO wasn't pushed back, but I must've missed that - I knew others were.

I'm presuming you actually have a more nuanced view of the subject than your post would indicate

If you read it again, I said "the optical is boring" with reference to JWST. It wasn't as clear as I had hoped (it was clear to me, but then again, I wrote it).

we will have any sort of UV capability for the following ten years or so

No, I agree we won't. But unfortunately I don't think we'd get another 10 years out of Hubble, and then we'd be out of the UV anyway. I don't think it's worth wasting the equivalent of several MIDEX's worth of money to try to keep it running for an extra 4 or 5 years.

Deep pictures

[HarveyBirdman]

Huh. I was expecting a photo of Kant, Descartes and Hobbes arguing on the Moon or something.

Re:Deep pictures

[squiggleslash]

No, but if you take a look at the star system at the upper right, you can just make out a young Barbara Cartland putting on her make-up.

Re:Deep pictures

[mcpkaaos]

That's too bad for you, I was thinking Traci Lords.

Ok Astronomy guys

[HMA2000]

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 :)

Re:Ok Astronomy guys

[nycsubway]

How much farther is the edge of the universe? They haven't seem to have found it yet, and they keep pushing back the estimates of the big bang. One of three things are possible:

1) The universe is a lot older than we thought

2) There was no big bang, and space is infinite

3) Space curves back on itself

It's just interesting that each time they release pictures from really really deep space, they have to revise the estimate for the time of the big bang.

Re:Ok Astronomy guys

[An Onerous Coward]

As I understand it, the last time the Hubble tried something like this was the Hubble Deep Field, which looked out to approximately 10% of the guesstimated age of the Universe. The full press release for the new UDF is here.
and they indicate that what we're looking at is about 400-800M years after the Big Bang.

Generally, the galaxies appear way more active than what we see locally, which is to be expected. But I--total amateur that I am--think it's a bit odd that the galaxies got slapped together so quickly. Whether it draws any of our assumptions about the Big Bang itself into question remains to be seen.

Re:Ok Astronomy guys

[jpflip]

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.

Re:Ok Astronomy guys

[pararox]

Ok, you can actually view a pretty interesting image detailing how 'close to the edge' these ultra deeps actuall go!

http://hubble.gsfc.nasa.gov/survey/hubbledev/db/20 04/07/images/j/formats/web_print.jpg

This is amazing and wonderful stuff.

Regards,

-pararox-

Re:Ok Astronomy guys

[gnuman99]

Some quick answers,

1) The universe is a lot older than we thought

Maybe. We can only verify this by looking. Without the Hubble (or something better), we really have no eyes to look with.

2) There was no big bang, and space is infinite

Well, there is no "Big Bang" the way most people think. But spacetime is finite. If it wasn't, why is the sky not completely filled (white) with all the galaxies? Why can I only see a finite universe? If it is infinite in space, it probably means it is infinite is time (you can't get to infinite size with finite steps in a finite amount of time).

BTW, infinity is not a number :)

3) Space curves back on itself

Sure.

The problem is that more than one of these things is possible. And there are a number of other things that are possible as well. Some of these posibilities are beyond what even Sci-Fi can imagine :)

Re:Ok Astronomy guys

[ToSeek]

It's just interesting that each time they release pictures from really really deep space, they have to revise the estimate for the time of the big bang.

This is BS. The latest and best estimate of the age of the universe is from the WMAP data, which gave a result of 13.7 billion years. This was actually close to the lower (more recent) end of generally accepted estimates. Neither the original Hubble Deep Field nor this image has had any significant effect on estimates of the time of the Big Bang.

Re:Ok Astronomy guys

[LMCBoy]

Argh! What are you talking about? We know how far away the "edge" of the Universe is! The only context in which the question makes sense is if by "Universe" we mean the observable Universe, which is simply a sphere centered on us, with radius c*T, where T is the elapsed time between the epoch of recombination and now, which was just a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang. So T=13.7 Gyr +/- 10%.

1) The universe is a lot older than we thought

No, no one who knows the first thing about cosmology entertains such a theory today.

2) There was no big bang, and space is infinite

Sorry, *all* applicable evidence points to a Big Bang as the origin of our Universe. Besides, the Big Bang does *NOT* preclude a physical Universe that is infinite in size! (here I am not talking about the observable Universe, whose finite geometry is well understood)

3) Space curves back on itself

If such curvature exists, its radius is much larger than that of the observable universe, so this has little to do with what you are talking about. The observable universe is very nearly flat.

Re:Ok Astronomy guys

[mindstrm]

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.

Look closely.

[Yoda2]

If you look carefully at the top left quadrant, you can see what appears to be Captain Kirk arguing with God.

Comparing

[Ch3shireCat]

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?

why scrap the Hubble?

[oni]

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.

Re:why scrap the Hubble?

[Doctor Fishboy]

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.

...but you cannot do UV work from the ground, as the atmosphere almost absorbs all UV flux of astrophysical interest. Also, AO is limited to about an arcminute around bright guide stars, and cannot provide good correction for the Earth's atmosphere beyond this radius. Laser projection systems are being developed to provide all-sky coverage, but they're a hassle to run consistently.

Dr Fish

Re:why scrap the Hubble?

[spanklin]

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.

Good points by Dr. Fish rebutting this, but there is one other point about AO -- it is *very* difficult to get precise photometry (measurements of the brightness of the objects in the field) from AO observations. These measurements are a necessity for most scientific studies of the area imaged.

Why scrap the hubble....

[braddock]

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

Re:Why scrap the hubble....

[oni]

Several extra billion dollars a year makes for a happy Boing and Lockheed, the real winners.

on the other hand, if Bush said "we will spare no expense to save hubble and pay for it by cancel any projects involving Lockheed and Boeing" we would have a slashdot thread about how Bush is responsible for layoffs in the aerospace industry.

So I guess he's damned if he does and damned if he don't.

same reason....

[Darth_brooks]

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.

Re:same reason....

[SB9876]

While the Hubble is old, your argument isn't really that persuasive. The optics and superstructure of Hubble still sork fine and are as good as anything we'd put up now with the same general configuration. The aborted Hubble repair mission contains an entire new set of cameras and pointing control devices. BTW, we already spent $400 million on these and they're now gathering dust in a NASA warehouse somewhere. With that upgrade, Hubble would have been upgraded to the latest modern optics and the gyroscopes upgraded to where we'd probably be able to get 5-10 years of useful life out of it.

The James Webb telescope in certain ways is much better than Hubble because of the larger mirror but can't see in the blue and UV which is OK if you're looking at distant, redshifted stuff but useless for looking at a lot of intergalactic events including some star formation processes. Furthermore, the biggest limitation of the space telescopes is one of time - we've got scads of ground based telescopes that users can schedule time on. For space-based telescopes, we've only got a few and the waiting lists are long. If we've got two telescopes, it basically doubles the number of users and science that can be done. Things like this UDF shot are hard to do since the 11 or so days of exposure that it required are hard to get with all of the competing time requirements.

The line about Hubble being too dangerous to service are bunk as well. Although the spacewalk portions of the repair are hazardous, there has never, to my knowledge, been any sort of incident during a spacewalk. That seems to indicate that it is not devastatingly hazardous. Also, the ISS is actually much more dangerous to get to due to its higher inclination. Furthermore, the 20 or so further Shuttle flight needed to finish it have a vastly higher cumulative risk. The ISS is basically incapable of doing meaninful science at this point. The NSF did a study about 5 years ago where it pointed out that ISS was either incapable of fufilling its science objectives or that they could be done better on the ground. Since then, the science capability of ISS has been reduced even more. Basically, ISS is a $20 billion project to keep the US shuttle contractors in work and to keep Russian aerospace engineers from going to 3rd world ICBM programs. As such, it's not a bad use of money since the cost of those Russian engineers going abroad in terms of military expenditures we'd have to do 10 years from now are much higher. However, that said, I'd rather that our military welfare not step on the toes of actually getting science done.

And lastly, the most important reason to keep Hubble running is that the Webb telescope isn't operating yet. It uses an folding mirror which has never been operationally tested. It sits too far away from Earth to ever be serviced should it have a malfunction. What if the booster lofting Webb blows up? If we deorbit Hubble, we open ourselves up to having NO space based optical and near IR telescope. We should at least service Hubble to keep it running until Webb is up and running reliably.

Not fixing hubble because...

[parmenio]

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...

Going Deep

[Evanrude]

You'd hope that with something that large it would be able to go deep...

huh?

Scrap hubble because...

[MalaclypseTheYounger]

It's cheaper to use the natural telescopes that exist already in space, and provide 10,000X the resolution that the Hubble can do?

http://astrobio.net/news/print.php?sid=835

CLICKY HERE

Replace Hubble?

[PingKing]

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.

Re:Replace Hubble?

[LMCBoy]

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.

That's why HST is serviceable, so that new instruments using improved technology can be added. The UDF was only possible because of the new Advanced Camera for Surveys that was installed during the last servicing mission.

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.

Again, you're describing the role of the instruments, not the telescope. The telescope is just the infrastructure to collect light and throw it onto the detector, there's not much technology there (unless you have an adaptive optics system, which isn't needed in a space telescope like HST).

Hubble Ultra Deep Field comments

[hcg50a]

All this info is in the press release, but here is my commentary on it. They haven't had a chance to really study the image yet--it was just released to everyone--scientists and lay people alike.

...the million-second-long exposure reveals the first galaxies to emerge from the so-called "dark ages," the time shortly after the big bang when the first stars reheated the cold, dark universe. The new image should offer new insights into what types of objects reheated the universe long ago.

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:

In vibrant contrast to the image's rich harvest of classic spiral and elliptical galaxies, there is a zoo of oddball galaxies littering the field. Some look like toothpicks; others like links on a bracelet. A few appear to be interacting. Their strange shapes are a far cry from the majestic spiral and elliptical galaxies we see today. These oddball galaxies chronicle a period when the universe was more chaotic. Order and structure were just beginning to emerge.

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.

Exhilarating and Depressing

[G4from128k]

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!

Re:Deepest Pictures Ever?

[MattHaffner]

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.

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.

Re:Because.

[jridley]

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.

Are you kidding me? Flight safety.

[jwriney]

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

Re:Are you kidding me? Flight safety.

[LMCBoy]

Oh, come on! The Shuttles are hardly "deathtraps"!

Before the Columbia accident, the estimated critical failure rate for Shuttle missions was 2%. The CAIB revised this, to 2%. Yes, that's right, their investigation found that the previous failure estimates were correct. In other words, our understanding of the danger inherent in shuttle missions has not changed at all since before the accident, only our willingness to face the danger has changed.

Why? I don't know. There's no shortage of astronauts willing to take the same risks they've always taken, and fly another HST servicing mission. They recognize the benefits in keeping the greatest scientific instrument we've ever produced healthy. Too bad NASA and the president do not. I sincerely hope that our lawmakers can salvage the mission.

Scrapping Hubble

[UncleBiggims]

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?

Re:Scrapping Hubble

[SB9876]

Futhermore, the risks of going to ISS are actually GREATER than Hubble:

http://www.marssociety.org/docs/Hubblerisk1a.pdf
http://www.marssociety.org/docs/Hubblerisk2a.pdf

Those are a pair of leaked NASA documents that got sent to the Mars Society. Basically Hubble is being killed for political reasons.

The Shuttle Columbia

[WyerByter]

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.

Not so fast

[zenetik]

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.

alternative uses for hubble...

[necrosaro]

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?

Re:alternative uses for hubble...

[spaceyhackerlady]

hubble has got some huge mirrors

2.4 meters (all the usual references) isn't all that big by 2004 standards. Hubble has the best sensors money can buy, and operates in the perfect seeing of space, but its performance is (and will always be) limited by its small aperture.

Others have mentioned adaptive optics, but what excites me is optical interferometry.

...laura

Re:Deepest Pictures Ever?

[Otter]

The fact is, we're seeing 186,000 miles further every second, because light takes time to get places.

No, that's seeing newer photons than those in the sky last night. Getting a meaningful image of more distant regions is what any reasonable person considers "seeing further", regardless of how long it took those photons to become visible.

Re:Because.

[Cecil]

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.

Save the Hubble

[kippy]

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.

Re:Deepest Pictures Ever?

[phorm]

those in power would rather break things and hurt people than do something constructive like explore space or feed children

And that's about it, too. If we'd channelled all the cash that the world puts into nukes, tanks, fighter-jets, aircraft carriers etc... and instead used it to fund space exploration, or heck even undersea, we probably would be a lot farther today.

What might they find if they have technology to make viable undersea colonies. I'm sure there are valuable assets untapped beneath the ocean, and we could grow food there, as well as mine minerals and other raw resources.

In space, well, there's a lot more potential but a larger timeframe involved. Again, if we'd put the money towards it, maybe they'd have some colonists on Mars already today, suddenly discovering there is water and aerable land. Rather than fighting over sections of our own planet, why not find some new places we can all share?

Replacement: The James Webb Space Telescope

[ausoleil]

According to this site: http://ngst.gsfc.nasa.gov/

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.

Flying deathtrap ?

[thrill12]

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 ?

why NASA wants to scrap Hubble?

[dummkopf]

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...

8 foot straw??

[Carbon Unit 549]

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.

Nasa.gov finally ./ed!!!

[OlivierB]

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)

Funny Warning...

[feidaykin]

So, I was looking for the highest resolution version, and I finally found it here. They have a very amusing warning page:

"You are attempting to access an image with an extremely high resolution. While the file size may be small, the number of pixels these images contains requires at least 113 MB of free RAM that is not being used by any other application, including your operating system.

Many computers and Web browsers will have difficulty viewing this image, which is intended mainly for high-resolution printed and digital material. The image may not appear, it may cause your Web browser to lock up, or it may crash your computer. Some Web browsers will display a "broken image" icon in response to your attempt to view the picture.

If you simply want to view this picture on screen, we recommend choosing one of the other image formats offered. If you still want to use this image, we suggest right-clicking (option-click on a Macintosh) on the following link, then choosing "Save Target As" to directly download this file to your computer. You can then try opening the file using dedicated image-viewing software. But note that few computers will be able to handle even the downloaded version of this image."

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. ;)

Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble...

[Mac Degger]

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.

answers

[hpulley]

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?

Re:Replacement: The James Webb Space Telescope

[EricWright]

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).

Re:Deepest Pictures Ever?

[paxmark1]

Amen to that.

Really really glad I got out of the states for a while, maybe longer.

None of my money went to the war crime of dispersing one micron depleted uranium mixed in with transuranics (military waste stream) in the bunker busters used on urban targets. I have 4 friends who saw the childrens oncology wards in Basra in the mid 1990's as the wave of childrens kidney cancers and certain specific leukemias started popping up.

Five six years from now there will be a new wave of childrens cancers in Iraq. (Also Kosovo and Afghanistan.)

Other friends of mine just got back from Iraq via Christian Peacemakers team. Bechtel is building five huge military bases and probably building it halfway decent. However their contract to rebuild and renovate schools can only be characterized as theft.

No money for Hubbell but lots of money for Bechtel and Halliburton.

It was really really nice to send my tax dollars to Canada, where they need bake sales to help finance their military.

Shalom,

Re:Deepest Pictures Ever?

[FroMan]

And that's about it, too. If we'd channelled all the cash that the world puts into nukes, tanks, fighter-jets, aircraft carriers etc... and instead used it to fund space exploration, or heck even undersea, we probably would be a lot farther today.

Actually, I would bet we might be further behind than today. You see, very little cutting edge tech has come out of nations like Iraq. However, Saddam has proven before he would rather annex land than develop a space program. Were we to simpley let men like Saddam continue while all our money is funneled into other programs instead of defense we would be at some point conquered by men like Saddam.

You could claim that Iraq is a small country and would not possibley be able to take over much of the world, but compare its size to Germany pre-WWII. Toss in folks like North Korea and who ever happens to support bin Laden and we have quite a few folks who would love to militarily take over the world and force their world view on everyone.

Now, you see it only takes one side to start a war. Being the biggest and strongest allows one side to end a war. I would rather be the side with the biggest and strongest guns since I know that my freedoms will be defended.

No Military value

[bstadil]

Hubble has no military value so the Cheyney led boys in the Military -Industrial complex consider it waste.

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.

NASA and Hubble

[retro128]

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.

Utopia does mean nowhere

[Iowaguy]

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

Re:Because.

[Zathrus]

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.

The EDGE

[peter303]

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.

Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble...

[Bootsy Collins]

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.

The high-redshift objects observations like this are intended to uncover have effectively no emission in the visible band by the time their light reaches Earth. What Earthbound telescope did you have in mind to produce this high-redshift infrared imaging?

Dark matter!

[jpflip]

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.

Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble...

[spanklin]

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.

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.

Maybe we should listen to the experts...

[PassiveLurker]

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.

Re:Deepest Pictures Ever?

[Jerf]

The fact is, we're seeing 186,000 miles further every second, because light takes time to get places.

Ahhh, if only cosmology were that simple. In fact, due to the way space itself is expanding, and especially in light of the recent discoveries that the expansion continues to accelerate, our horizen is shrinking. Eventually we'll only be able to see our gravitationally bound local group... and if the "big rip" theories hold true (which I am skeptical about on other grounds but we'll see), eventually even those disappear.

You statement is only true in a static universe with a discrete beginning that lept into existence all at once (no 'expansion', just instant matter everywhere that eventually forms into galaxies); three wrong assumptions for the price of one.

Re:What andy doesn't know about the Hubble...

[elwinc]

(1) asmospheric distubances mess up earthbound images -- it's hard to beat a point spread function of 1 arcsec with a passive earthbound scope; the Hubble is more like 0.1 arcsec. You can mess around with adaptive optics (all modern 6m + up scopes do) if you can get a good guidestar near your target, and you can mess around with artificial guidestars, but you're still dependent on still dry air to do as well as the Hubble does.

(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.

Re:Because.

[j0n4th4nb34r]

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.

Hubble was Canceled for Safety Reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me highlight some myths that are in this forum:

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!

If you want a better picture

[ITman75]

go here

• http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0403/hudf _hst_big.jpg

Why is this "insightful"?

[Capt'n Hector]

I'm sorry you don't have the patience to explain, but perhaps you should bear through it if just for your own understanding. Hubble is in orbit around earth and not at a lagrange point. I don't know the orbital period off hand, but I think it's something like 20 minutes. This means Hubble can only take small exposures at a time before whatever it is observing gets blocked by earth. Even so, Hubble still needs to focus on one point, but I'd be very surprised if they didn't code some sort of image stability correction into Hubble.

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.

Re:Why is this "insightful"?

[SEWilco]

Hubble is in orbit around earth and not at a lagrange point. This means Hubble can only take small exposures at a time before whatever it is observing gets blocked by earth.

Analysis suggests two-dimensional limitation on thought.

Re:Replacement: The James Webb Space Telescope

[SB9876]

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.

Re:Because.

[jefe7777]

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...

Re:UV?

[Doctor Fishboy]

It's a good thought, but ozone holes are really ozone depletions, and they still rule out sensitive UV measurement. That, and the holes are at the poles, and so you're limited to the amount of sky you can look at.

Dr Fish

Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble...

[SEWilco]

What Earthbound telescope did you have in mind to produce this high-redshift infrared imaging?

The telescope at the top of the space elevator.

...it depends on your definition of "Earthbound".

Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble...

[SEWilco]

I don't know why some /.'ers seem to think that Hubble is easily replaceable. It isn't.

A Space Shuttle Orbiter is even harder to replace.
The astronauts inside the Orbiter are easier to replace, but harder to place at risk.

It must die to make way for the new.

[Charcharodon]

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.

Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble...

[spanklin]

Really? VLT telescope produces images as sharp as Hubble

Yes, really. You know, radio observatories have been publishing for decades images that have higher angular resolution than Hubble. In fact, the VLBA (the Very Long Baseline Array) still outperforms Hubble in terms of angular resolution. Yes, it is true that the VLT can produce images with adaptive optics that are as sharp as the Hubble's.

HOWEVER, angular resolution is not everything! Hubble gives astronomers access to areas of the electromagnetic spectrum that ground-based observatories cannot access because of the Earth's atmosphere. Also, the field of view of AO images is tiny. Read the comments to any Hubble story, and you will see this theme over and over and over again. Some of Hubble's capabilities are unique. The JWST will not duplicate many of these unique capabilities, and NO telescope on the ground or in space can duplicate some of the science made possible by Hubble.

New! Improved!

[SEWilco]

Coming soon:

• Mega Deep Field
• Giga Deep Field
• Hyper Deep Field
• Far Left Deep Field
• Intense Deep Field
• Macro Deep Field
• Extreme Deep Field
• Edgy Deep Field
• Scuba Deep Field
• Deep Deep Field
• Long Deep Field
• Infinite Deep Field
• Wanderlust Deep Field

Re:Redshift?

[spanklin]

None of the galaxies in this image seems different in color from something like Andromeda. Are these images manipulated?

Actually, if you look closely, the galaxies are all different colors. Look towards the lower right corner, and you will see an orange spiral galaxy, and then below and to the right of it, a smaller, redder one. The difference in color is because of the redshift. The most distant objects are the tiny, red pinpoints, much smaller than the large, obvious galaxies.

Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble...

[spanklin]

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.

Re:What they don't tell you about Hubble...

[spanklin]

but AO renders much of the atmospheric interference moot.

Please read some of the posts by astronomers (including me) in this story and any other HST story. This is absolutely untrue. Yes, AO does allow ground-based astronomers to take high angular resolution images comparable to the quality of Hubble. However, the science that you can get from AO images does not compare to the science you can get out of Hubble images. AO is still too limited in many ways, and there is no way it will ever overcome some of the limitations. THE FACT IS THAT ULTRAVIOLET ASTRONOMY IS IMPOSSIBLE FROM THE GROUND! No AO telescope can observe in the UV, which Hubble can. This makes impossible many topics in Quasar research, interstellar and intergalactic medium research, hot star research, and a zillion other fields that I can't think of off the top of my head.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

[Charcharodon]

Actually it would be more like several hundred billion, not just a few. Anyway giving aerospace a kick is not a bad thing. It is one of the largest employers for the US, it is one of the few industies where it is illegal for them to export to lower expenses, and besides who do you think is going to be building orbital and solar craft that will expand what science can be done in the future?

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.

Wallpapers out of the Image

[gavinroy]

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

no, not really...

[rbird76]

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.

Has Kerry expressed an opinion on Hubble?

[catbutt]

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.

SaveHubble.org

[chuckpeters]

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?

Re:Thank you!

[pease1]

My feeling is that it is scattered light from the corrective lenses, and not the primary and secondary mirrors...

Yep, that's my sense too. Of course it would not be there if the corrective lenses didn't need to be there :-)

Truth be told, a researcher likely isn't bothered by the stuff, unless their object is near a brighter star. But I've already seen stylized artwork based on the famous "pillars of life" image that includes the halo! The public thinks that junk belongs there!!!!!!

Cheers

Why scrap Hubble, you can help with SaveHubble.org

[chuckpeters]

Actually, a congressman from Colorado is trying to get a commitee together to determine the fate of the Hubble, so the decision is not solely on the director of NASA. This could mean life for the Hubble.

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!

SaveHubble.org

[chuckpeters]

We started our efforts at http://SaveHubble.org because that petition was unlikely to accomplish much. O'Keefe doesn't care about a petition, he will care if Bush and a lot of congress calls or writes him!

You can write President Bush and Sean O'Keefe from our website.

Contact you Congress person and your Senator.

Help SaveHubble.org poll congress!