Hubble Sees Stars As They're Born

Artful Yankee writes "Space.com is reporting that the Hubble telescope revealed stars as they were being born. The article explains, 'The stars have yet to condense into small enough packages to trigger thermonuclear fusion, which is what powers stars, but they appear to be on the verge, astronomers said today.' All these amazing discoveries from Hubble and people still talk about abandoning it."

Comments

cost

[IconBasedIdea]

The talk of abandoning the satellite often is because it is less expensive to send up better, newer satellites than maintain this one.

Old news

[PhiznTRG]

All these amazing discoveries from Hubble and people still talk about abandoning it.

It's old news, that's why - those stars were born years ago and are probably already dead! Why can't we spend the money on something more useful, like an Anti-Gravity device!!

Re:Old news

[Short Circuit]

Eh? It's only 210,000 light-years away. If it were to be born the very moment the light we currently see was generated, it would only be 210,000 years old right now. Even the fastest-burning stars last millions of years.

Re:Old news

[thegeneralpeter]

Or maybe they could turn it toward the playboy mansion

If no one wants it..

[Device666]

I want to adopt Hubble if no one wants it. Anyone else?

Re:If no one wants it..

[phaggood]

All these amazing discoveries from Hubble and people still talk about abandoning it."

1. Turn Hubble 180 degrees to target the caves of Afghanistan. 2. Take pics of certain bearded rebel/former CIA contractor 3. ?? 4. Profit! (then turn 'scope around secure in your next 30 centuries of military-based funding)

Re:If no one wants it..

[oni]

uh huh. But here's the problem. Hubble has four gyros. They are absolutely vital to its operation. Without them, you can't point at the star you want to see, but more importantly, you can't point the solar panels at the sun when it's time to recharge.

Two of the gyroscopes have already broken. If the other two break, hubble will be space junk - and we just don't allow that to happen anymore. It's better to de-orbit something than to allow it to stay up there, risk having peices fall off, and just generally adding to the clutter that already makes low earth orbit dangerous. With me so far? You cannot allow a broken HST to remain in orbit. You have to clean up your trash.

Well guess what. You need a gyro in order to align the thrusters retrograde in order to deorbit. You *cannot* keep using the telescope until that last gyro goes bad, because then it will be stranded up there and pose yet another hazard to future missions to LEO. Guess what that means... it means that when the third gyro breaks, when you are down to only one gyro left, you have to deorbit the HST right then and there.

So... there are two gyros left. The third one could break today or tomorrow or next year. But when it does, that's it. Do you understand? That's why there is talk of getting rid of the HST.

We could use the shuttle to replace the gyros, but after the columbia accident the public is just too much of a collective pussy to allow a manned mission for something like that. I don't agree with it either, but basically the only two options for hubble are, 1. a manned mission. 2. throw it away.

You can say, "I'd like to adopt it" if you want to. That's fine. But unless you have a space shuttle in your garage, you cannot extend the life of the thing.

Here is a better plan: take the $500 million that we would have to spend on a shuttle mission, and spend that on a newer, better telescope. Doesn't that sound like a good idea?

Re:If no one wants it..

[bill_mcgonigle]

I don't agree with it either, but basically the only two options for hubble are, 1. a manned mission. 2. throw it away.

There's still work being done towards a robotic mission.

In the name of Science...

[sarlos]

People just aren't willing to spend money purely in the name of Science. There needs to be a concrete reason for it. Personally, as a space buff, I find things like this mind boggling. But to the average american, this means nothing.

When politicians talk about funding for the Hubble, or for the ISS, or any other project, it's typically because the funding would directly profit their constituents. In the rare case, they believe in the science of the project, but if it doesn't garner them votes, there's no point in voicing their opinion.

Basically, if something doesn't have military signifigance, there's little interest in the government for funding it. If something doesn't have commercial value, there's little interest in the commercial sector for funding it. It all comes down to dollars, and pure science typically comes last.

Re:In the name of Science...

[vertinox]

People just aren't willing to spend money purely in the name of Science. There needs to be a concrete reason for it.

Maybe we aren't promoting spending large quanities of money into science in the right way or putting the right "spin" on things.

Well I mean there are things like... well um... Manipulation of time and space... Free robot slave labor... Immortality... Technological singularity events... Virtual sex... Little things like that which we could grab people's attention with.

I mean if we told Joe Sixpac that if we spend $200 billion in AI research now that he'll have a robot sex slave wife in 5 years he would be more willing to pay more taxes, right?

Maybe if we told them we are looking for space chicks with the hubble and if we find any that he'll be the first to know!

Re:In the name of Science...

[Kelson]

People just aren't willing to spend money purely in the name of Science. There needs to be a concrete reason for it.

Yeah. It's kind of funny how there's all this really interesting science you can get from exposures in various wavelengths of lights, spectroscopy, etc, but when it comes down to it, all the average person sees -- or wants to see, for that matter -- are the pretty pictures.

Not that I have anything against pretty pictures -- I've got the Astronomy Picture of the Day on my daily rotation -- but as much as they appeal to our sense of awe, they get hard to justify when you start looking at the expenditure. (Then some studio spends $250 million making a summer movie, making you wonder what our priorities are...)

Re:In the name of Science...

[zulux]

But to the average american, this means nothing.

Give the average American some credit.... most of us support NASA. We've supported everything for Apollo, Voyager, Skylab, ISS and Hubble.

The questions that really needs to be asked is... why Europe is slacking off in space exploration. The *Chinese* are doing better for god's sake.

Star porn...

[mister_llah]

... and thus, star porn was born.

Re:Star porn...

[Anonymous Coward]

FTFA

Energetic outflows and radiation from hot young stars

We need Intelligent Astrology in our schools.

[FFFish]

Enough of this crap about "star formation theory" and "gravitational lense theory" and all that other tripe!

We need to start teaching Intelligent Astrology in our schools. The stars were put there BY GOD for our use. That is why we have constellations like Libra and Virgo: they are part of God's plan.

We don't need no stinking Hubble Telescope, named after some queer godless astronomer, when we have books like Of Stars and People, which spells out exactly how God's plan is better than man's godless theories.

Re:We need Intelligent Astrology in our schools.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. that was funny the first 30 or 40 times someone else made that exact same joke. Maybe next time you can think up something orginal. Or, here's a thought, maybe we can just ignore that tiny tiny 1% minority that reject science.

Re:We need Intelligent Astrology in our schools.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're underestimating that 1% -- both in size and in tenacity.

Re:We need Intelligent Astrology in our schools.

[FFFish]

Oh, irony of ironies... I thought I was joking, but it appears it is real!

Re:We need Intelligent Astrology in our schools.

[jazman]

I think you need to read up on the Flying Spaghetti Monster, young fella-me-lad. Clearly these are not stars but star-sized olives, placed into the interstellar bolognese sauce by His FSMness.

Hard to Tell which stars they're talking about

[justanyone]

I've RTFA (read the article) and looked carefully at the picture.

. Looks like a star field to me with a bunch of nebular (sp?) gas around it. It would really help if they had some kind of analysis, some additional picture with the stars in question circled or with arrows to them or something.

I've had 2 semesters of college astronomy. I understand some (rough concepts of) stellar dynamics. This article didn't go into the ways in which they determining what was going on. Does a star start fusion reactions only in the center of the star and this is hidden for some time? What does it look like then, a ball of glowing gas? How long does it take to be identifiable as a distinct object, where 'there's the star' and 'there's the edge of space' (plus or minus the coronasphere which flings off stuff like mad, IIRC).

if anyone knows how this stuff happens, in detail, can you give a pointer to it or explain here (a) what exactly does the process of stellar birth LOOK like, and (b) what did we discover about it recently...? And, Please, use all the technical terms that are appropriate, I'm both capable and interested and can look up terms later if need be... Thanks!!?!?!?!???

Re:Hard to Tell which stars they're talking about

[jcorno]

I'm pretty sure you should see light before the fusions starts, because it has to get really hot before it happens. Gravity powers the heating as it collapses, until fusion starts and continues the heating. It wouldn't be like flipping a switch. If that were the case, it would probably blow apart the collected gases and have to start over from scratch.

Re:Hard to Tell which stars they're talking about

[helioquake]

I don't have time to address all the points you asked. (and I was just going to moderate tonight but...)

But let me simply put that: (1) a dense gaseous material in space coagulate, sometimes by accident, sometimes by external force. (2) by chance, the gaseous goo must become dense enough such that it is stable against thermal gas expansion (as things collapse, it gains heat; as it heats up, it tends to expand; so the gravitational collapse must overcome that). (3) Or by external force, the original goo can be compressed into the denser goo. (4) once dense enough, it'd collapse under its own gravitational force and generally continue to accumulate extra materials from the neighboring prenatal environment. At this point the "proto" star shines as a thermal source (in infrared), or when some magnetic field is twisted around (they are usually there) on the surface of the star or its accreting (accumulation) surface, the field "reconnects" and release its magnetic energy into kinetic and radiative energies. Some X-ray or optical flares are seen from these proto stars. (5) Eventually it becomes critically massive enough that it begins its own self-sustained nuclear fusion reaction at its core. From there on, the proto star quickly progresses and becomes one of those main-sequence stars.

Now, I believe this news article by Antonella is about finding the (3) process. Basically she thinks that the pressure from radiation and stellar winds of these "bluish" stars are compressing the neighboring nebula and forming an arched prenatal environment (dark arched silhouette in the image). I'm guessing this is a speculation to sell so that she can ask for some infrared observing time with Spitzer IR telescope (and perhaps rightly so). The image alone doesn't really show you how exactly stars are born in the field (which sort of annoys me a bit...these EP/O folks are often too liberal in their interpretation of the finding sometimes...).

Meh.... Sometimes people don't make sense

[technoextreme]

When politicians talk about funding for the Hubble, or for the ISS, or any other project, it's typically because the funding would directly profit their constituents. In the rare case, they believe in the science of the project, but if it doesn't garner them votes, there's no point in voicing their opinion. Basically, if something doesn't have military signifigance, there's little interest in the government for funding it. If something doesn't have commercial value, there's little interest in the commercial sector for funding it. It all comes down to dollars, and pure science typically comes last.

Personally, I would tend to disagree with you because I lived right next door to a science project that cost a billion dollars to build and is based purely on theoretical physics. Unfortunately, they are cutting the budget. http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/pressroom /press_releases/2005/PR41617.RHIC.042005.pf.html

We're being pulled in

[waterlogged]

Thats no star.... thats a death moon.... er space station......no... maybe it it's a death star..... yeah thats it a death star.

Remember there is no gravity

[baywulf]

Remember there is no gravity.. it is just God pushing you down.
-- Quoted from someone on Digg

wow...

[no reason to be here]

Remember there is no gravity.. it is just God pushing you down.
-- Quoted from someone on Digg

Cool. I didn't know trent reznor hung out on digg.