ikenbot:

scanzen:

Cosmic pioneer Edwin Hubble, in a 1949 photograph, perches in the observer’s cage of the then-new 200-inch telescope. He first discovered and studied other galaxies with the telescope’s 100-inch predecessor. In: Life nature library - The Universe by David Bergamini and the Editors of Time-Life Books. Time-Life Books, New York, 1962.

Hubble get down from there you are not a telescope yet. What are you doing there? Get down you are a person. You wont be a telescope for another couple of decades you silly head.

AB Aurigae: How To Make Planets

Credit: C.A. Grady (NOAO, NASA/GSFC), et al., NASA

Explanation: This enhanced Hubble Space Telescope image shows in remarkable detail the inner portion of the disk of dust and gas surrounding the star AB Aurigae. Knots of material, visible here for the first time, may well represent an early stage of a process which could result in the formation of planets over the next few million years. AB Aurigae is a young star (2-4 million years old), about 469 light-years distant. Its swirling circumstellar disk is large, about 30 times the size of our solar system. Astronomers believe planet-making is just beginning in AB Aurigae’s disk because known disks surrounding younger stars (less than 1 million years old) do not show such clumpy structure, while disks of slightly older stars (aged 8-10 million years) have gaps and features suggesting that planets have already been formed. Why the window pane appearance? Wide black stripes in the picture are caused by occulting bars used to block out the overwhelming starlight and the diagonal streaks are due to diffraction spikes.

NASA to Discuss Hubble Discovery of Milky Way’s Violent Fate Thursday

NASA will reveal new discoveries about the violent fate of our Milky Way galaxy on Thursday (May 31), the space agency has announced.

NASA will hold a press conference at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) Thursday at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Scientists will discuss new Hubble Space Telescope findings about the inevitable crash of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, which will occur billions of years from now.

“Because of uncertainties in Andromeda’s motion, it has not been possible to determine whether the Milky Way will have a head-on collision or glancing blow with the neighboring galaxy billions of years in the future,” NASA officials said in a media alert Friday (May 25). “Hubble’s precise observations will settle this question.”

Several Hubble telescope program scientists and astronomers will participate in Thursday’s briefing. They include:

·       Roeland van der Marel, astronomer, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore

·       Sangmo Tony Sohn, astronomer, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore

·       Rosemary Wyse, professor, Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

·       John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington

The briefing will air live on NASA TV, which is available here:http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

After the press conference, the panelists will also host a web chat at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) to answer questions from the public. You can participate in the web chat by visiting this web site:http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/M31_collision_chat.html

The Hubble Space Telescope, a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency, launched in April 1990 aboard the space shuttle Discovery. In the 22 years since, Hubble has revolutionized the way humanity views the cosmos.

The telescope’s observations revealed, for instance, that the universe is expanding faster than anyone had realized. This finding helped lead astronomers to the probable chief cause of this accelerated expansion — the mysterious “dark energy” that makes up most of our universe.

The telescope has been repaired five times over its long life, but it’s expected to keep going strong until at least 2014.

itsfullofstars:

The 100 inch (2.5 m) Hooker telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles, California. This is the telescope that Edwin Hubble used to measure galaxy redshifts and discover the general expansion of the universe.

At the time of this photograph, the Hooker telescope had been mothballed, although in 1992 it was refitted with adaptive optics and is once again in use.

Hubble’s Constant and The Expanding Universe (I)

Credit W. Freedman (Carnegie Observatories), HST Key Project Team, and NASA

Explanation: Our Universe is expanding. Distant galaxies appear to recede from us at ever-increasing speeds. What is the rate of expansion? How long has it been expanding? What will be its ultimate fate? Two groups of astronomers are searching vigorously for answers to these fundamental questions using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The teams have recently announced conflicting measurements of the Hubble constant, a number which represents the expansion rate of the Universe. Astronomer Wendy Freedman and her collaborators have used pulsating stars called Cepheids to measure the distance to galaxies like the Fornax cluster barred spiral galaxy NGC1365 shown above. The ground based photo (left) shows an inset locating the HST image (right) which Freedman and team have used to identify some 50 Cepheids. Their distance and velocity measurements determine Hubble’s constant to be about 80 kilometers per second per megaparsec which means that galaxies one megaparsec (3 million lightyears) distant appear to recede from us at a speed of 80 kilometers per second. Conflicting results indicating a substantially slower expansion rate (smaller Hubble constant) are being reported by astronomer Allan Sandage and collaborators. The value of Hubble’s constant was recently the subject of a popular public debate titled “The Scale of the Universe 1996: The Value of Hubble’s Constant”.

expose-the-light:

Hubble’s Millionth Observation

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope reached its millionth science observation on July 4, 2011, during a search for water in the atmosphere of an exoplanet (a planet outside our solar system) 1,000 light-years away.

This is an artist’s concept of that planet, HAT-P-7b. It is a “hot Jupiter” class planet orbiting a star that is much hotter than our sun. Hubble Space Telescope’s millionth science observation was trained on this planet to look for the presence of water vapor and to study the planet’s atmosphere.

(via wildlydistorted)

the-star-stuff:

Types of galaxies according to the Hubble classification scheme.

An E indicates a type of elliptical galaxy; an S is a spiral; and SB is a barred-spiral galaxy.

(via ikenbot)

Can You Find A Hubble Hidden Treasure?

Just look at the kind of stunning images that are buried in the archives from the Hubble Space Telescope! Here, Hubble turned its powerful wide field Advanced Camera for Surveys towards this spiral galaxy and took this close-up of its northern half. The entire galaxy, called NGC 891, stretches across 100,000 light-years and we see it exactly edge-on.

Visible are filaments of dust and gas escaping the plane of the galaxy. A few foreground stars from the Milky Way shine brightly in the image, while distant elliptical galaxies can be seen in the lower right of the image.

This is just an example of the hidden gems in Hubble’s archives that have never been seen by the general public. There’s a new contest to find more — so how can you participate?

The HST has made over one million observations during its more than two decades in orbit. New images are published nearly every week, but hidden in Hubble’s huge data archives are some truly breathtaking images that have never been seen. They’re called Hubble’s Hidden Treasures, and between now and May 31, 2012, ESA invites you to help bring them to light. Just explore the Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA), and dig out a great dataset, adjust the contrast and colors using the simple online tools, and submit to the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Contest Flickr group. For more information about the competition, visit the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures webpage.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) also conducted a similar ‘treasure hunt’ with great results.

This image was found by contestant Nick Rose.

Scientists are planning to use NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to observe next month’s historic transit of Venus across the sun’s face.

But there’s a twist. Researchers can’t point Hubble anywhere near the sun, because our star’s bright light could damage the telescope’s super-sensitive instruments. So Hubble will watch the June 5-6 Venus transit by using the moon as a mirror.

The goal is to see if Hubble can determine the makeup of Venus’ atmosphere bystudying sunlight that has poured through it. Astronomers already know a great deal about Venus’ air, so next month’s observations are a test run to see if the technique could be used to determine the atmospheric composition of farawayalien planets, researchers said.

Scientists hope the method can help them find an “alien Earth,” a habitable planet much like our own, orbiting a distant star. Venus is an excellent proxy for this search because it’s nearly the same size and mass as Earth, researchers said. 

Hubble will be locked onto one location on the moon’s surface for the entire seven-hour transit, during which Venus will appear as a tiny black dot crossing the sun’s face.

Astronomers need the long observation time because they’re looking for extremely faint spectral signatures. Only 0.001 percent of the sun’s light will filter through Venus’s thick atmosphere and be reflected off the moon, researchers said.

The team will use several different Hubble instruments — including the Advanced Camera for Surveys, the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph — to view the transit in a range of wavelengths, from near-infrared to ultraviolet light. Hubble will snap images and perform spectroscopy, dividing the sunlight into its constituent colors.

Astronomers have already begun training for the events of June 5-6. In January, for example, Hubble took some photos of the moon’s Tycho Crater, a huge hole in the ground about 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide. During the test observations, researchers made sure they could repeatedly point Hubble at precisely the same target area.

Next month’s Venus transit is a special event — the last chance for astronomers and amateur skywatchers alike to watch the planet trek across the solar disk. The last Venus transit occurred in 2004, but the next one won’t happen until 2117.

The Hubble Space Telescope celebrated its 22nd year in orbit earlier this month. The instrument launched in April 1990, and over the years it has made more than 1 million observations of the universe.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter@Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Currently reading. And I must say, I’m pretty blown away at the massiveness of this book. It isn’t some simple astrophotography book with limited text & Hubble’s “highlights”. It’s a full dedication/ode to the HST, along with the men & women behind every last creative thought, concept, implementation, bolt, test, experiment, assembly, launch, placement, positioning, resurrection, correction, upgrade, analyzing, adjusting, beautifying & eventual bestowing to humanity, with respect & homage to those before us who’ve allowed the Hubble Space Telescope to become a true symbol & icon of human ingenuity. (Author above)

The Hubble space telescope brought space’s beauty to the average person in North America. Via magazines, weblinks or video, the last few years this instrument dazzled us with a dizzying and splendid array of artistic and scientific sights. The book “Hubble: Imaging Space and Time” by David Devorkin and Robert W. Smith captures many of these treasures and the story of the Hubble telescope itself. Bright and vivacious, the telescope’s images within the book show that once again science is a captivating field.

The space shuttle Discovery carried the Hubble space telescope into its orbit in 1990. A great mirror in it collects light then focuses it upon a variety of collectors. The results get sent to Earth stations whereupon experts view and massaged it for maximum benefit. From the results, our knowledge progresses and our appreciation of the splendour of nature increases. And, with great foresight, the telescope designers created a maintainable system. So, many other shuttle missions have travelled to the telescope to upgrade instruments and repair components. One more mission, now waiting on the launch pad, will hopefully keep the telescope functional for many more years.

This book acknowledges the Hubble telescope’s storied past and its many contributions to science and art. Its large format is reminiscent of a coffee table book. The broad pages serve to fill the readers’ eyes with particularly photogenic images. As well, the many pages of text let the reader peer into some of the elements of the relevant science and technology. Of course, the book mentions the memorable repair mission to fix the mirror’s erroneous shape. It also mentions the different sensors, the means of allocating viewing time and the method of processing data. There’s even a significant section on the purposely driven artistic shots. With allusions to artists of the old American mid-West, the strive for dynamism of the universe, and the perception of a sublime frontier, the authors clearly aim to broaden the appeal of the pictures and the telescope’s capabilities.

Yet, the appeal of images from the Hubble space telescope is well established apart from this book. Hence, the focus of the authors is somewhat unclear. Hundreds of large and small images on the pages amply showcase the telescope’s products. But, though sectioned into defined chapters, the book has no central theme. The science of the telescope gets described, but the reader cannot gauge the scientific advances from the contents. The artistry of the images is richly brought forward, but there’s no formal discussion on the images’ general effect on the arts. As well, sometimes images appear twice, images appear well apart from and unreferenced to the apparently related text, or images are from other telescopes. These cause distractions. Fortunately, the images themselves are copious and incredibly rewarding, for without them, this book would be difficult at best.
So, perhaps the best location for this book to lie is upon a coffee table. Everyone who picks it up will be quickly enamoured. And they assuredly can’t help but think how trivial they are in relation to the size universe. Even thought the reader won’t know or be able to read of the value of the images, they should get immense pleasure just by being drawn into the realm of the book, far removed as it is from our everyday experience.

Satellites and telescopes have enabled us to view the Earth and the universe with an heretofore impossible vantage point and clarity. Millions of stars in a galaxy appear where only a dot once had been apparent. David Devorkin and Robert W. Smith’s book “Hubble: Imaging Space and Time” brings many of these wonders into the ready hands of viewers and closely, happily connects them with a broader existence.

fyeahuniverse:

^{Jupiter in Ultraviolet}

^{Taken in 1994 by the Wide Field Camera of the Hubble Telescope, this image is in ultraviolet and shows the impacts of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet (southern hemisphere).}

^{(Image credit: Hubble Space Telescope)}

(via wildlydistorted)

What can I say about this guy. Before the astrophotography work of Michael Bensen caught my eye, I considered purchasing this book, Hubble: Imaging Space and Time, by David Devorkin (above) & Robert W. Smith, which is “produced” by National Geographic & contains two forewords by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist & John M. Grunsfeld, Astronaut. 

I haven’t even scratched the surface of this book, but it encapsulates the beauty, respect & legacy of one of mankind’s greatest achievements in space exploration & human innovation.

personal sidebar: When he signed the book, he asked me what I wanted it to say. He offered up two suggestions based on what he’s been writing to everyone else when he autographs their books. I told him that this book was so incredibly important & that his honest words meant more to me & to put down what he felt because he was writing in regards to my admiration & attention to his work, passion for the universe & appreciation of the Hubble’s achievements for all of history (in fewer words).

He obliged & validated that comment by saying his heart & his person exists in his work in this book. So he wrote:

for Rich

Welcome to my world of images and dreams. 

And on Welcome Discovery Day

David Devorkin

April 19th, 2012

*click the source link for the book review by universetoday.com :)

(Source: universetoday.com)

pretendy:

Happy Birthday Hubble

Today the Hubble Space Telescope celebrates its cake day, having spent 22 years collecting some of the most iconic images in science. Though possibly the most successful unmanned space program to date, its manufacture was beset by a decade of technical setbacks.

When it was finally launched in 1990, within a few weeks it became apparent that there was a major problem with its optical system. Images it returned were ten times more blurry than what they were supposed to be. The problem was identified to be a misshapen primary mirror.

Though it was one of the finest mirrors ever cut, boasting smoothness almost to the atomic scale, it was found to be ever so slightly too flat - by about 2µm at the edges. This lead to the catastrophic aberrations present in the images it brought back.

It was too costly at the time to bring it back to Earth for a refit and too impractical to conduct a refit in space. Instead, engineers came up with an ingenious solution - to fit it with extra optics which would act as a monocle, correcting the aberration. This ‘hack’ was done by astronauts of STS-61 Endeavour and worked like a charm.

Data collected by Hubble since then has had a tremendous impact on astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology.

However, I think that its served an even higher purpose. Before Hubble, we had but a glimpse of the beauty of outer space. However, in the 22 years of its operation it has given us a whole encyclopaedia of the richness and diversity of galaxies, nebulae, stars, supernovae etc.

Images like the Pillars of Creation have become culturally iconic and significant. When I was little, I was enthralled by these images, and I’m sure Hubble is partially responsible for some of my early interest in science. In fact, I’m absolutely sure this can also be said of many other students of my generation who grew up with Hubble.

On behalf of these people I say: Hubble, we salute you!

(via theuniverseishuge)

22 years ago today, the Hubble Space Telescope launched into orbit. After overcoming initial problems, Hubble has gone on to become legendary, helping scientists to rewrite astronomy textbooks. To celebrate Hubble’s 22nd anniversary, here’s a slideshow from ESA’s Hubblecast that shows some of the best images from over two decades in orbit, set to specially commissioned music.

Here’s a list of the images shown and their descriptions:

1990: Saturn
Among the first images to be sent back from Hubble after its launch in April 1990, this image of Saturn is good by the standards of ground-based telescopes, but slightly blurry. This is because of the well-publicized problem with Hubble’s mirror, which did not allow images to be focused properly.

1991: Orion Nebula
Although not perfectly sharp, this early image of the Orion Nebula nevertheless shows the rich colors and structures of this bright star-forming region.

1992: Herbig-Haro 2
Throughout the region of the Orion Nebula are numerous streamers of gas that come from newborn stars, known to astronomers as Herbig-Haro Objects.

1993: Messier 100
In late 1993, Hubble’s teething problems were resolved in the first servicing mission. Before-and-after images of the core of spiral galaxy Messier 100 show how this dramatically improved the telescope’s image quality.

1994: Shoemaker-Levy 9 hits Jupiter
Soon after the astronauts repaired Hubble during the first servicing mission, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter. A similar impact on Earth 65 million years ago is thought to have killed off the dinosaurs.

1995: Eagle Nebula
Hubble’s image of the ‘pillars of creation’ in the Eagle Nebula is one of its most famous. These huge, dusty structures enshroud pockets of ongoing star formation.

1996: NGC 6826
This image from 1996 shows a planetary nebula, which represents the other extremity of a star’s life from the Eagle Nebula. Planetary nebulae form when Sun-like stars puff out their outer layers as they run low on fuel. They are so named because of their roughly spherical shape and green color, not because of the presence of any planets.

1997: Mars
NASA’s Mars Pathfinder probe was en route to Mars in 1997 while Hubble took this image. Although Hubble cannot compete with the resolution of images taken from probes which actually fly past or land on planets, it does offer the advantage of being able to make long-term observations, useful for studying planets’ climates and weather.

1998: Ring Nebula
Another planetary nebula, the Ring Nebula is one of the most famous.

1999: Keyhole Nebula
The Keyhole Nebula, part of the larger Carina Nebula is another bright star-forming region.

2000: NGC 1999
Not all nebulae glow brightly. NGC 1999 contains a dark patch silhouetted against a brighter background which reflects starlight.

2001: ESO 510-G13
Hubble’s image of this galaxy shows the dramatic deformations that can occur after collisions between galaxies. Although the immense distance between stars makes it vanishingly unlikely for stars to actually collide with each other, the tidal forces can warp and tear galaxies out of shape.

2002: Cone Nebula
Further upgrades in 2002, including the installation of the Advanced Camera for Surveys increased resolution and picture quality again. Hubble’s ultra-sharp image of the Cone Nebula demonstrates the new instrument’s capabilities.

2003: Hubble Ultra Deep Field
Usually astronomers know what they’re going to look at when they plan their observations. For the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, observed over 11 days between September 2003 and January 2004, they did not. Pointing the telescope at an extremely dark patch of sky devoid of nearby stars, this extremely long exposure was designed to see the most distant and faintest galaxies in the Universe.

2004: Antennae Galaxies
The dramatic collision of two spiral galaxies is visible in this image of the Antennae Galaxies. The bright pink patches visible across much of the vista are pockets of star formation triggered by the gravitational interaction of the galaxies.

2005: The Orion Nebula
This image of the Orion Nebula is one of the largest and most detailed ever made.

2006: Messier 9
Globular clusters, roughly spherical collections of stars, contain some of the oldest stars in our Milky Way. Hubble’s high resolution observations allow astronomers to discern individual stars right into the center of these clusters.

2007: NGC 4874
This image of NGC 4874, a galaxy in the Coma Cluster, was taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys just two days before it suffered an electronic failure in January 2007. For the next two years, astronomers would have to make do with lower resolution images from Hubble’s other cameras.

2008: NGC 2818
This image of planetary nebula NGC 2818 dates from this period. It is worth noting that even with its capabilities constrained, Hubble was still able to produce images that compete with any telescope on the ground.

2009: Bug Nebula
In 2009, astronauts traveled to Hubble for another servicing mission, which installed new and upgraded cameras. The Bug Nebula was one of the first images sent back: Hubble was back in business.

2010: Centaurus A
Using its new instrumentation, Hubble peered into the heart of Centaurus A, a dramatically dusty galaxy.

2011: Tarantula Nebula
Just published in April 2012, this image of the Tarantula Nebula combines a mosaic of Hubble observations, which capture the detail and structure of the nebula, with observations of glowing hydrogen and oxygen from the European Southern Observatory’s MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope in Chile, which provide color. The image is one of the most detailed ever made of a star-forming region, weighing in at an astonishing 330 megapixels.

2012: ???
Most of Hubble’s data are only made public a year after they are made, in order to give the team who designed the observations some time to study and publish their results. And it sometimes takes a few more years before the pictures get processed and released to the public. So what’s Hubble’s best picture from 2012? You’ll just have to wait to find out…