The Camera That Changed the Universe

StartsWithABang writes As the Hubble Space Telescope gets set to celebrate the 25th anniversary of opening its eyes to the Universe, it's important to realize that the first four years of operations were kind of a disaster. It wasn't until they corrected the flawed primary mirror and installed an upgraded camera — the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) — that the Universe truly came into focus. From 1993 to 2009, this workhorse camera literally changed our view of the Universe, and we're pushing even past those limits today.

Comments

Like Schrodinger's cat

[jfdavis668]

The Universe's state was only determined when we observed it.

Re:Like Schrodinger's cat

[PPH]

So, who do you think you are?

I haven't looked at it yet. So the options are still open.

It was the press coverage that was the disaster

[UnderCoverPenguin]

Despite the slight change in the curvature of the main mirror, Hubble's images were pretty amazing. It was the press and the politicians that called it a disaster. Fortunately, that didn't prevent NASA from sending a crew to install corrective optics and a better camera.

Re:It was the press coverage that was the disaster

[TapeCutter]

I recall reading about the mirror when it was being made, the precision with which it was polished was mind bogglingly accurate, if it was the size of Australia the largest deviation from perfectly smooth would be less than a millimetre. The problem was the shape (which changes slightly when put in zero-g), an extra shim in the framework that held the glass while it was cut was found to be the cause of the problem.

Cannot fathom why your post id marked redundant, OT maybe, but redundant?

Discovery

[ArcadeMan]

The Hubble Space Telescope made us realize that space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

Re:Discovery

[Richard_at_work]

An attribution to Douglas Adams would be good ;)

Re:Discovery

[LordWabbit2]

Hubble ultra deep field
Yeah, it's big

Re:Discovery

[jfdavis668]

What is the penalty for plagiarism on /.?

One of many

[quenda]

It is a little sad that while at least seventeen of these giant telescopes have been launched by the US alone, only one has ever looked up.

Re:One of many

[mrsquid0]

NASA does not have the funds to build instruments, or to run them once they have been launched. One of the telescopes is being used for the WFIRST mission (http://wfirst.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/). The other is waiting for money.

Re:One of many

[sbrown7792]

But first, let me take a #selfie!

Re:One of many

[jandrese]

It's also possible they don't have some of the features you would need to make them any better than the Hubble. They may be set up to track things on the surface of the Earth and not have hardware necessary for long tracking shots of deep space objects. They may also be malfunctioning in some way and not useful unless they get serviced, which isn't going to happen now that the Shuttle program is over.

This is ridiculous....

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I get the quantum mechanics principle, the mere act of observing changes the observed, that you can't measure the momentum or the position without affecting the other. But, just put a telescope in the orbit and it changed the universe? ... come on guys, there should be some limits even on hyperbole.

Re:This is ridiculous....

[Em Adespoton]

I get the quantum mechanics principle, the mere act of observing changes the observed, that you can't measure the momentum or the position without affecting the other. But, just put a telescope in the orbit and it changed the universe? ... come on guys, there should be some limits even on hyperbole.

I change the universe all the time. Of course, most of it will never be affected by those changes, but changes they are.

Re:This is ridiculous....

[BlackPignouf]

Actually, everything was fine until you made an observation about the observation.
The universe is doomed now.
What have you done????

Changed the Universe?

[Etherwalk]

The camera only changed the universe if we are in a simulation with lazy evaluation (things are extrapolated and created to be as they should exist when we look at them) or or if something like quantum superposition applies on a macro-level (the observed matter's state is changed based on our observation of it).

The camera didn't change the universe, it changed the *known* universe--made us a little less ignorant. For millenia mankind expanded its knowledge of places by travelling to them. That has now become prohibitive for almost every place in the known universe.

The easiest stuff is done. We still need to explore the oceans and the solar system, where travel is quite inefficient but not utterly prohibitive.

We also need to develop defense against world-killers. Biological, nuclear, and simple kinetic energy.

And the big hump after that should be interstellar exploration. Multigenerational, multicentury.

We'll need to figure out relatively stable world government and economy before that happens, so give us another four to twelve centuries, I'd say.

Re:Changed the Universe?

[Etherwalk]

I read it. It's pretty, exploratory, well worth a read.

Re: StartsWithABang

[UnknownSoldier]

Thanks for the posting that.

Sadly, Dogma is just as much present in Scientists as it is with Priests.

Great book of the story behind the repair mission

[SuperKendall]

A photographer was given broad access across all of NASA years before the mission launched to fix the Hubble, and he put together an book of amazing photos and stories behind the mission:

Infinie Worlds by Michael Soluri. They have a hardcover and a Kindle version, not sure how the pictures would come out in the Kindle version but the hardcover is pretty large and the photos look great.

God's Expressive Influence

[Tablizer]

My all-time favorite Hubble pic: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap03...