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Upgraded Hubble To Be 90 Times As Powerful

Posted by kdawson on from the new-glasses-and-oh-here's-your-binoculars dept.

The feed brings us a New Scientist review of the repairs and new instruments that astronauts will bring to the Hubble Space Telescope next August (unless the launch is delayed). The resulting instrument will be 90 times as powerful as Hubble was designed to be when launched, and 60% more capable than it was after its flawed optics were repaired in 1993. If the astronauts pull it off — and the mission is no slam-dunk — the space telescope should be able to image galaxies back to 400 million years after the Big Bang.

2 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Was Hubble worth it? by anthonys_junk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The fundamental problem with your statement is that you assume that the $$$ would otherwise have been used to change lives in a big positive way.

    Put very simply, through science, we gain an understanding of the world, and universe around us, how it operates and how we can interact more effectively with it.

    --
    Barbara Felden claims prior art on the flip phone, sues Motorola, Nokia.
  2. Re:Hubble: Right answer to wrong question by hdparm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not bloody pictures! It's seeing proof that we have our maths right.