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Farewell To Eyes Above And Below
LMCBoy writes "SpaceRef is reporting that the STIS Instrument on board HST has failed. The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph was HST's only spectrometer, and was responsible for several important discoveries, including the first detection of an exoplanet's atmosphere.
The loss is believed to have been caused by a failure in the instrument's main electronics box, which led to a rapid increase in the input current of about 1 ampere, which caused the instrument to enter a "suspend" state. It is believed that this failure is not recoverable."
No_Weak_Heart writes "Perhaps the world's most renowned submersible, Alvin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is slated for retirement. Alvin has helped scientists explore deep sea, find a lost Hydrogen bomb(oops!) and discover more than 300 new animal species, will be replaced by a newer version in 2008. Also available this audio clip from NPR." (Here's a glance at Alvin's replacement.) Update: 08/07 17:29 GMT by T : Note: "HST"="Hubble Space Telescope." Thanks to Chris Johansen for pointing out the overloaded acryonym.
won't put an end to the planned rejuvenation of the Hubble Telescope.
A friend of mine's dad has been pulled out of semi-retirement to help design a light receptor to be fitted to the hubble, which would be able to detect accurately induvidual photons of light.
So if this failure leads to the collapse of the Hubble Reborn project, he'll be out of a job, and more importantly out of a damn interesting project.
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And thanks for all the awesome images.
Now that the HST is effectively blind, it can look forward to a long and promising career as an NFL referee.
Found a hydrogen bomb? The one that releases the power of the sun? Given the amount of earth the ground covers compared to dry land, it makes you wonder how many more of these little "lost treasures" are out there. Definitely puts one over on the guy and that T.V. commerical: "With the treasure hunter, my wife is proud of the weight I lost, and she's definitely proud of this!" [H-bomb twinkles]
Don't forget that Alvin was also responsible for helping Dr. Robert Ballard to find the wreck of the Titanic.
Yes, but until you have the replacement in place, you do not get rid of the old one. Once there is a good replacement for, and not just more empty promises, then you let it go.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No, it's not time to let Hubble go. A lawnmower is completely different from an expensive and still potentially useful scientific instrument. Fixing Hubble is worthwhile because its replacement isn't operational yet, it won't be serviceable, and it's designed to detect different things.
"I think so, Brain, but 'instant karma' always gets so lumpy." - Pinky
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NASA and HSTSI have invested very large amounts of money and time in the HST program. Even if a new telescope was built and launched, it wouldn't make the instruments magically become 50% cheaper. With the way NASA is being funded, it may be decades before another optical telescope is put in space.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
...this will take some of the sting out of the planned retirement of the Hubble.
I agree with another poster here that we need to get a suitable replacement up ASAP, but perhaps now that Hubble is truly showing its age, the public will accept its retirement as an eventuality. After all, Skylab was a pioneering space "device" (for lack of a better term) and we let that fall back down to Earth.
I'm not saying we should necessarily write it off right now, but that maybe those folks at NASA who said six months ago that Hubble was getting near retirement age were right. Now, instead of lots of expensive repair missions, let's get a new and better 'scope up there ASAP!
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The spectrograph is what failed; the optics are fine and dandy.
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We're still going to get nice pretty pictures out of Hubble, just no UV/wavelength pictures
Hubble's hobbled, but still alive and kicking.
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Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Additionally, how exactly do you "let the Hubble go"? Ever wonder what an enormous 2.4 meter, aerodynamic chunk of glass will do if you let its orbit decay? SOMEONE is going to get hurt, because many parts of hubble will not burn up in re-entry. To "let the Hubble go" would require another servicing mission. Might as well fix the STIS anyway, eh?
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
There's still one off the coast of Georgia!
o mb.0502.html.
Heard about this only recently. Google for "Georgia coast bomb", you'll find some stories, such as http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/05/02/a5.b
It's considered more risky to retrieve than to let it lie. Might spread contamination. I'm in Jacksonville, Florida; if it went off, I might hear the boom!
for the bazillionth time, Hubble is more than just pictures. Ground-based scopes are limited to optical frequencies, Hubble can see from near IR to near UV.
More importantly, though, imaging is only one small component of astronomy, it's the spectra where much of the 'real' science is done. Spectra need to be very clean, the atmosphere not only blocks certain frequencies out of optical, but adds its own absorption/emission spectra on top of that.
So basically this telescope is NOT a replacement for Hubble, no matter what they're claiming to get funding. It will complement Hubble, that's for sure, but definitely not replace.
make world, not war
Uh, yeah
The Hubble is done. Deal with it. If the geniuses in Congress decides that our hard earned tax dollars are better spent putting up a new scope up than feeding the poor, educating our children, or researching cures for deadly diseases, we can have another one.I am curious. At what time in our past history, or any societies history for that matter, have we been able to feed all, educate all, and have absolutely no disease? None that I am aware of. But I do note that in history, societies always do better when they persue science and technologies. Historically, that was when they where engaged in a war off their soil. When the war is on their soil, science and technology stop. So how do we increase our science. One approach is simply start worthless wars that do little for us. Hummmmmm. Rome did that for eons. Perhaps others have as well.
But a better time was when a society sought something beyond their grasp. England migrating all over the world is a good example (interesting that they were not the original discover, but took advantage of it). The original Space shot did more us than any other war did. And it was a whole lot cheaper than any war that we engaged in.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Today, the romance of the ocean is dead. You can work on a containership or an oil rig, but nobody dreams of a career as an "aquanaut". Jacques Costeau seems dated.