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Hubble Makes Millionth Observation

Posted by Unknown on from the not-bad-for-an-american-telescope dept.

sfcrazy wrote in with an article about the Hubble telescope. From the article: "NASA's Hubble Space Telescope crossed another milestone in its space odyssey of exploration and discovery. On Monday, July 4, the Earth-orbiting observatory logged its one millionth science observation during a search for water in an exoplanet's atmosphere 1,000 light-years away."

7 of 38 comments (clear)

  1. Hope it doesn't break again. by jra · · Score: 2

    It'll be awfully hard to fix...

    1. Re:Hope it doesn't break again. by JoshuaZ · · Score: 2

      Hubble has done a very good job and is getting old. The technology has been vastly improved since when Hubble was first put in space. That's why we can have a lot of different space based instruments now, whereas when Hubble was put up it was the primary one. When Hubble finally becomes too damaged for effective use, we will have many other instruments. We already have Spitzer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitzer_Space_Telescope and will have the James Webb Telescope around 2018 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Telescope . Webb will be able to image far fainter objects than Hubble and in far more detail. I'm not that worried about Hubble breaking. It has done a very good job and served humanity well.

  2. Artist's Concept by Spiflicator · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why does it seem like every time I read an article about space imaging, there is an artist's rendition, instead of an actual rendition of the image?

    1. Re:Artist's Concept by lucian1900 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Because the actual image isn't in wavelenghts you can see, has crap resolution and often results indirectly from other information.

    2. Re:Artist's Concept by Lord+Crc · · Score: 5, Informative

      Why does it seem like every time I read an article about space imaging, there is an artist's rendition, instead of an actual rendition of the image?

      The actual image would most likely be of the star itself, and usually is just a few pixels wide. Not a lot for people to look at.

      However by observing those pixels over a long time they may see changes in the color / spectrum indicating the vapors in the atmosphere of the planet when it passes in front of the star.

      Here's a Hubble image of an actual exoplanet, 25 light years away. The exoplanet they're imaging in the story here is 1000 light years away...

  3. What was it? by billsayswow · · Score: 2

    The One Millionth Observation? "What's the deal with airline food [...]" The 1,000,001st was about how women are different than men, followed by an anecdote about the Hubble, its spouse, and brushing teeth.

  4. Re:Shut it down now! by Fujisawa+Sensei · · Score: 2

    If you believe that, you don't know enough teabaggers.

    --
    If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.