A crew aboard the space shuttle 'Endeavor' successfully repaired the Hubble telescope in December of 1993.

At their 360-mile-high rendezvous, Endeavour's crew pulled the telescope onto a platform in the space shuttle's open cargo bay.

There, they attached new stabilizing gyroscopes necessary to guide the telescope, replaced its solar panels and gave it a new primary camera.

The wide-field planetary camera was responsible for about half of the Hubble's observations.

It had been sending to earth unfocused images due to a flaw in its primary mirror.

Hubble, which had been launched into space in 1990, had only been able to transmit bright images within 4 billion light-years rather than the optimal 10 to 15 billion.

The flaw had limited the observations of astronomers investigating theories of an expanding universe and the existence of black holes.

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This Day in History - December 2, 1993 - Hubble Repair Shuttle Mission Launched

Hubble Space Telescope: Merry Christmas from the Hubble Telescope Images and christmas songs
This image was created with information received from the ever amazing Hubble Space Telescope. i have mixed iit with a favourite Christmas carol. Sit back and enjpy. Thanks to Nasa / ESA...

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Hubble Space Telescope: Merry Christmas from the Hubble Telescope Images and christmas songs - Video

Atlantis Captures Hubble Telescope
Video streaming by http://www.AllthingsScience.com The Atlantis astronauts have captured the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronauts grabbed the orbiting observat...

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Hubble Telescope - Library Trailer
A promotional video to market exclusive NASA footage that had been filmed during the making of When We Left Earth. Editor: Dan Hall (dan.hall@puplimited.com)

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Hubble Telescope - Library Trailer - Video

Published: 17 Nov 2014 15:300 comments

A REGULAR feature from Tweeddale Astronomical Society...

THE increased popularity of astronomy as an interest and hobby over recent years has been in large part due to one of mankinds greatest technological achievements, the Hubble Space Telescope.

Hubble telescope.

Since its launch in 1990, Hubble has been providing us with spectacular images in exquisite detail. These have not just delighted the amateurs among us and inspired many to take up the hobby, but have given professional astronomers and cosmologists a wealth of insight into the history, structure and diversity of the universe.

The telescope was named after Edwin Hubble, who in the late 1920s demonstrated that the Milky Way was not the entire universe, but was in fact just one of billions of galaxies, all of which seemed to be racing away from one another after an event which became known as 'The Big Bang.

So, why put a telescope in space? In its position 353 miles above the Earth, Hubble uses its 2.4m mirror to get a view of the universe that typically far surpasses that of much larger ground-based telescopes, which look through an atmosphere that can distort and block the light that reaches our planet.

Even the mountain-top telescopes in Chile, Hawaii and the Canary Islands, which can have mirrors as large as 10m across, still suffer from these effects and struggle to match the results of Hubble.

Amongst other things, Hubbles gaze has helped determine the age of the universe, discover planets outside our solar system, and demonstrate the existence of dark energy. One of the most striking images produced by Hubble came from scientists pointing the telescope at an apparently empty part of the sky and collecting light for almost 12 days.

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Eyes On The Skies

The 25th anniversary of the Hubble telescope is coming up in April. In honor of this, 3 engineers from the Hubble group participated in a Google chat explaining a bit about how the telescope is operated. (Photo : NASA)

Almost 25 years ago, scientists at NASA launched the Hubble telescope into space. April 24, 2015 will be the 25th anniversary of the historic Hubble telescope, which was the initially telescope ever to remain in orbit in space. Yesterday, on November 13, Tony Darnell and Scott Lewis hosted a live Google hangout session with 3 engineers and scientists who function at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, exactly where the Hubble telescope's ground controls are based, to discover a bit about how the Hubble telescope operates. These scientists perform with the Hubble telescope every day, and have some awesome insights into the mechanics of the telescope.

Operating a space telescope from Earth is no doubt a complex job, and is most likely a practice in patience. One particular issue that the Hubble telescope engineers face is how to block out stray light, maintaining the telescope focused. The engineers have a mirror that they can handle remotely from the ground at the Goddard Space Flight Center, so if a scientist who is employing the telescope for a investigation project says that the telescope is not adequately focused, they can adjust the mirror till it's in concentrate once again.

Moving the telescope can be tedious. Hubble moves very slowly, at about the speed of the minute hand on a clock, stated Mike Wenz, the lead of the Hubble telescope's Optical Assembly.

"For us to do a 90 degree turn, it takes us about 15 minutes," Wenz stated.

Morgan Van Arsdall, who is on the systems management team, mentioned that each and every week the Hubble team comes up with a schedule for the telescope's location, based on what they want it to appear at. They then load that info onto the computers. One of the computer systems they are functioning on is an old Intel 486, a model which IBM stopped making in 2007.

"Is there an AOL disc in there?" a single of the hosts, Scott Lewis, asked, jokingly.

One more exciting issue the scientists revealed is that, on a day-to-day basis, no a single is monitoring the telescope. The telescope employed to be fully staffed by a team of five, but a few years ago NASA switched to an automated system that monitors the telemetry and other set standards. If anything goes incorrect, the program will send a text message to a single of the folks on the Hubble group, and they'll come in.

The Hubble Space Telescope was sent into low Earth orbit in 1990 and can visualize near ultraviolet, visible, and close to infrared spectra. The telescope has been the supply of numerous astronomical observations and discoveries.

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Ever Wondered How the Hubble is Operated? Three Engineers ...

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory have uncovered young, massive and compact galaxies that are dying earlier than expected.

The researchers said that the firestorm of star birth has blasted out most of the remaining gaseous fuel needed to make future generations of stars and are on track to possibly becoming so-called "red and dead galaxies," composed only of aging stars.

Scientists had earlier believed that powerful monster black holes lurking at the centers of the galaxies triggered the gaseous outflows and shut down star birth by blowing out any remaining fuel, but the recent study shows that the stars themselves are turning out the lights on their own star-making party, which happened when the universe was half its current age of 13.7 billion years.

Paul Sell of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, lead author of a science paper, said that the common belief was that stars cannot drive high-velocity outflows in galaxies; only more powerful supermassive black holes can do that, however, it was found that the stars can actually produce the velocities of the outflows alone without needing to invoke the black hole.

Team member Christy Tremonti of the University of Wisconsin-Madison first identified the galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey as post-starburst objects spouting high-speed gaseous fountains. The sharp visible-light views from Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 show that the outflows are arising from the most compact galaxies yet found. These galaxies contain as much mass as our Milky Way galaxy, but packed into a much smaller area. The smallest galaxies are about 650 light-years across.

One reason for the stellar shutdown is that the gas rapidly heats up, becoming too hot to contract under gravity to form new stars. Another possibility is that the star-birthing frenzy blasts out most of the star-making gas via powerful stellar winds.

The researchers said that the biggest surprise from Hubble was the realisation that the newly formed stars were born so close together and the extreme physical conditions at the centers of these galaxies explain how they can expel gas at millions of miles per hour.

They found that it was the powerful stellar winds from the most massive and short-lived stars at the end of their lives, combined with their explosive deaths as supernovae. Based on their analysis of the Hubble and Chandra data, team members suggest that the "party begins" when two gas-rich galaxies collide, funneling a torrent of cold gas into the merging galaxies' compact center. The large amount of gas compressed into the small space ignites the birth of numerous stars. The energy from the stellar firestorm then blows out the leftover gas, quenching further star formation.

The study was published in the Royal Astronomical Society.

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NASA's Hubble telescope finds young galaxies on track to becoming 'red and dead'

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) has appointed Dr. Roeland van der Marel to lead its work on a proposed NASA space telescope that will provide images as sharp as the Hubble Space Telescope, but over a hundred times larger area. The space observatory, called the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope-Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets (WFIRST-AFTA), is being studied for launch in the mid-2020s, pending program approval by NASA.The telescope will be used to probe the distribution of dark matter, which is most of the matter in the universe, and the characteristics of dark energy, a repulsive force that is pushing the universe apart at an ever-faster rate. The telescope will also be used to measure the abundance and characteristics of planets orbiting other stars. As a general-purpose observatory with a large survey program, it will also yield fundamental progress in many other astrophysical subjects.STScI is presently the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope and the science and mission operations center for the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2018.WFIRST-AFTA will produce large-scale maps of the night sky at the highest resolution we have ever had. Our Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) already holds the astronomical data from some 20 astronomy missions. The addition of the enormous WFIRST-AFTA dataset would add considerably to its scientific discovery potential, STScI Director Matt Mountain said.A wide-field infrared survey telescope was the highest-ranked large space mission recommended by the National Academy of Sciences 2010 Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey. WFIRST-AFTA would fulfill this recommendation. The heart of the proposed telescope is already built. It features a 2.4-meter-diameter mirror (the same size as Hubbles mirror), which was donated to NASA in 2012 by the United States National Reconnaissance Office.WFIRST-AFTA will have a wide-field, near-infrared imaging camera and also a visible-light coronagraph, an instrument specially designed for studying planets orbiting other stars. These instruments share many characteristics with instruments on Hubble and the Webb telescope, with which STScI has extensive experience.We will be extremely excited to help the astronomical community use WFIRST-AFTA to further revolutionize our understanding of the universe, van der Marel said. The Hubble data and analysis tools provided by STScI have already enabled astronomers around the world to make many ground-breaking astronomical discoveries. Building on that experience at STScI will make WFIRST-AFTA a powerful complement to the Webb telescope, and will further expand our knowledge.Van der Marel earned a doctorate in astronomy in 1994 from Leiden University in the Netherlands and joined the STScI staff in 1997. He previously led teams dealing with the scientific operations of Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys, and dealing with the structure, optics, and pointing of the Webb telescope. Van der Marel is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.Van der Marel is an expert on black holes and the structure of galaxies. His research, which includes using the Hubble telescope to study galaxies, has contributed to the discovery that supermassive black holes exist in the centers of most galaxies. In 2005, he won the Pirelli International Award for developing an educational website that explains black holes to students and the public.STScI is collaborating with NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, Maryland), NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (La Canada Flintridge, California), the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (Pasadena, California), and other partners on preparations for the WFIRST-AFTA mission.Contact:Ray VillardSpace Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.+1 410-338-4514villard@stsci.eduImages and more information about WFIRST:http://hubblesite.org/news/2014/49NASAs WFIRST Portalhttp://wfirst.gsfc.nasa.gov/STScIs Brochure Pushing Astronomys Boundshttp://hubblesite.org/pubinfo/pdf/2014/49/pdf.pdfWFIRST Video Trailer on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtKmBMmpWvwQ&A Session about NASAs WFIRST Mission:http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/qa-session-about-nasas-wfirst-mission/

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Lead Appointed on Proposed Wide Field Space Telescope

Hubble telescope runs on ___ power

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Hubble telescope runs on ___ power - Video

Kelly-Hubble Telescope 11.09.14
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Kelly-Hubble Telescope 11.09.14 - Video

On November 20, Lilly's Bistro at 1147 Bardstown Road will be hosting Hubble Rumble in the Hood, a special dining event celebrating Edwin Hubble's 125th Birthday. Hubble Rumble in the Hood is a collaboration between Lilly's and the University of Louisvilles Gheens Science Hall and Rauch Planetarium.

Yes, that Edwin Hubble, of the Hubble Telescope. The American astronomer actually lived in Louisville, on Everett Avenue, near Cherokee Triangle in the Highlands. Hubble also taught Spanish, physics and math at New Albany High School before he decided to become an astronomer at 25, at which point he left Kentuckianafor the University of Chicago.

Hubble Rumble in the Hood (November 20, 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. for lunch and 5 p.m. - 10 p.m. for dinner) will allow diners to choose from "specialty cocktails like the Cosmic Cosmopolitan, the Guiness Black Hole and Hubbles Bubbles, or culinary treats such as Lillys Crescent Moon Caramelized Onion Tart and Hanger Steak with Jedi Sauce and Death Star Gnocchi." A percentage of all lunch and dinner sales will go towards bringing an Owsley Brown II Portable Planetarium to Bloom Elementary School.

Telescopes will be set up in front of Lilly's during dinner hours to allow patrons to observe the sky, with telescopes and viewing tips provided by the Louisville Astronomical Society. Educators will be on hand during dinner hours to talk about Hubble's influence and impact on astronomy. Reservations can be made by calling 502-451-0447, but are not required.

Image courtesy of Lilly's Bistro

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Hubble Rumble in the Hood Happening November 20 at Lilly's Bistro

Hubble Telescope Operator
Hubble Telescope Operator Paul Stephanus Bard Paul Stephanus Released on: 2014-07-23 Auto-generated by YouTube.

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Hubble Telescope Operator - Video

The Hubble Telescope Operator
The Hubble Telescope Operator Paul Stephanus Bard Paul Stephanus Released on: 2014-07-23 Auto-generated by YouTube.

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The Hubble Telescope Operator - Video

Images captured by the Hubble Telescope of the vast debris systems surrounding nearby stars. Credit: NASA/ESA/ G. Schneider (University of Arizona), and the HST/GO 12228 Team

Using NASAs Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have completed the largest and most sensitive visible-light imaging survey of the debris disks surrounding nearby stars. These dusty disks, likely created by collisions between leftover objects from planet formation, were imaged around stars as young as 10 million years old and as mature as more than 1 billion years old.

The research was conducted by astronomers from NASAs Goddard Space Center with the help of the University of Arizonas Steward Observatory. The survey was led by Glenn Schneider, the results of which appeared in the Oct. 1st 2014 issue of The Astronomical Journal.

We find that the systems are not simply flat with uniform surfaces, Schneider said. These are actually pretty complicated three-dimensional debris systems, often with embedded smaller structures. Some of the substructures could be signposts of unseen planets.

In addition to learning much about the debris fields that surround neighboring stars, the study presented an opportunity to learn more about the formation of our own Solar System.

Its like looking back in time to see the kinds of destructive events that once routinely happened in our solar system after the planets formed, said Schneider.

Once thought to be flat disks, the study revealed an unexpected diversity and complexity of dusty debris structures surrounding the observed stars. This strongly suggest they are being gravitationally affected by unseen planets orbiting the star.

Alternatively, these effects could result from the stars passing through interstellar space. In addition, the researchers discovered that no two disks of material surrounding stars were alike.

A circumstellar disk of debris around a matured stellar system may indicate that Earth-like planets lie within. Credit: NASA/JPL

The astronomers used Hubbles Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph to study 10 previously discovered circumstellar debris systems, plus MP Mus, a mature protoplanetary disk that is comparable in age to the youngest of the debris disks.

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Its Complicated: Hubble Survey Finds Unexpected Diversity in Dusty Discs Around Nearby Stars

Best 100 Hubble images of cosmos
The Hubble Telescope has been active for nearly a quarter of a century. Explore the universe through Hubble #39;s eye, and witness the most dangerous, spectacula...

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NASAs Hubble Space Telescope has detected a faint light, described as the ghostly glow of stars that were ejected from ancient galaxies, which themselves are believed to have been ripped apart by gravitational forces billions of years ago. The light is believed to emerge from inside a collection of about 500 galaxies known as Abell 2744, about four billion light-years away.

According to astronomers, the stars in this group of galaxies -- named Pandoras Cluster -- are scattered and their light has helped scientists gather evidence, suggesting that as many as six galaxies were torn to pieces inside the cluster over a period of six billion years. Astronomers expect the new findings to help them better understand the evolution of galaxy clusters.

The results are in good agreement with what has been predicted to happen inside massive galaxy clusters, Mireia Montes of The Instituto de Astrofsica de Canarias (IAC), Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain, and the lead author of the study published in the Astrophysical Journal earlier this month, said in a statement.

The astronomers estimate that the combined light of about 200 billion outcast stars contributes about 10 percent of the clusters brightness. According to data provided by Hubble, these stars have significant amounts of heavier elements, such as oxygen, carbon and nitrogen.The gravity in galaxy clusters deflects light passing through them, magnifying, brightening and distorting light in a phenomenon called gravitational lensing, which is used by astronomers to blow up the images of remote galaxies.

According to NASA, Abell 2744 is a target in the Frontier Fields program, a three-year-long mission that combines Hubble and NASAs other observatories to study massive galaxy clusters for answers to the universe.

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NASAs Hubble Telescope Spots Ghost Light From Dead Galaxies

It appears that spooky goings-on over the Halloween period are not just confined to Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope has made its own ghostly discovery by capturing the ghost light from dead galaxies ripped apart billions of years ago.

The ghost light comes from stars that were ejected from ancient galaxies ripped apart by gravity. These orphaned stars are no longer attached to any one galaxy, and instead wander between nearby galaxies.

But dont worry, they wont be wandering over here any time soon. This epic galaxy death happened over four billion light years away in a large group of galaxies known as the Pandora cluster, or Abel 2744.

Hubble astronomers have turned detective and used the ground-breaking images to deduce the dead galaxies last movements. Their evidence suggests that as many as six galaxies were torn apart over a time period of six billion years.

These galaxies were probably about the same size as our own Milky Way. Such smaller galaxies would have had no chance as they plunged through the centre of the galaxy cluster where gravitational tidal forces are at their strongest.

The source of the ghost light is actually coming from an estimated200 billion outcast stars. They make up about 10% of the total light being emitted by the Pandora cluster.

Measurements taken by Hubble show that these stars are rich inheavier elements like oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. Thats a tell-tale sign that these are second or third-generation stars which have been enriched by elements that were originally created at the heart of the universes first-generation stars.

This kind of on-going star formation is most commonly found in spiral galaxies, which is where we think these orphan stars originated.

Well for a start its impressive that we even spotted these stars.

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Hubble Telescope makes a 'ghostly' discovery billions of light years away

October 31, 2014

Pandoras Cluster, which is also known as Abell 2744, is an immense grouping of nearly 500 galaxies, and the ghostly glow detected by Hubble was emitted by scattered stars that had been expelled from galaxies galaxies which themselves had been gravitationally torn apart several billion years ago, according to the US space agency.

[ Watch the Video: Abell 2744 Y1 Is The Most Distant Galaxy Discovered ]

The orphaned stars, which are located four billion light-years from Earth, are no longer bound to a single galaxy and drift freely from one to another in the cluster. By observing their light, Hubble astronomers have managed to gather forensic evidence suggesting that up to six galaxies were torn to pieces in the cluster over a period of six billion years. Their findings have been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Computer modeling of the gravitational dynamics among galaxies in a cluster suggests that the stars originated from galaxies approximately the same size as the Milky Way. Those galaxies, the study authors explained, would have been pulled apart if they traveled through the center of the galaxy cluster, where the strongest gravitational tidal forces are found.

The Hubble data revealing the ghost light are important steps forward in understanding the evolution of galaxy clusters, research team member Ignacio Trujillo of the Instituto de Astrofsica de Canarias (IAC), La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain said in a statement. It is also amazingly beautiful in that we found the telltale glow by utilizing Hubbles unique capabilities.

While astronomers have long hypothesized that they should be able to detect the light from scattered stars left behind after galaxies become disassembled, it was difficult to detect this anticipated intracluster glow of stars because of how faint it was. The researchers estimate that the combined light of approximately 200 billion outcast stars contributes nearly one-tenth of the clusters brightness.

Because these extremely faint stars are brightest at near-infrared wavelengths of light, the team emphasized that this type of observation could only be accomplished with Hubbles infrared sensitivity to extraordinarily dim light, NASA explained. Hubble measurements determined that the phantom stars are rich in heavier elements like oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. This means the scattered stars must be second or third-generation stars enriched with the elements forged in the hearts of the universes first-generation stars.

Spiral galaxies like the ones believed to be torn apart can sustain ongoing star formation that creates chemically-enriched stars, the US space agency added. Weighing more than 4 trillion solar masses, Abell 2744 is a target in the Frontier Fields program. This ambitious three-year effort teams Hubble and NASAs other Great Observatories to look at select massive galaxy clusters to help astronomers probe the remote universe.

Galaxy clusters are so massive that their gravity deflects light that passes through them. As a result, that light becomes brighter, magnified and distorted due to what is known as gravitational lensing. This phenomenon is exploited by astronomers, who use these clusters like a zoom lens to get a better look at distant galaxies that would otherwise be too faint for even telescopes as powerful as Hubble to detect.

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Ghost Light From Distant Dead Galaxies Detected By Hubble Telescope

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- Recently, while observing changes in Jupiter's most famous atmospheric cyclone, the swirling Great Red Spot, Hubble found itself caught in the eye of the storm, so to speak.

As the telescope honed in on Jupiter's red spot, one of the planet's 69 moons, Ganymede, passed between Jupiter and the sun, casting a perfectly round shadow.

For a brief moment, the moon's shadow intersected the Great Red Spot -- adding a pupil to Jupiter's iconic storm. The Hubble Space Telescope found itself in a staring contest.

"For a moment, Jupiter 'stared' back at Hubble like a one-eyed giant Cyclops," officials at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center wrote in a caption for the newly captured image.

2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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Hubble telescope caught in staring contest with Jupiter

Jupiter's "Cyclops" eye.Nasa/ESA/A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center)

Jupiter has been spotted "looking back" at us through a huge Cyclops eye by Nasa's Hubble Telescope.

The 10,000 mile-diameter "eye" was spotted while Hubble was monitoring changes to the planet's Great Red Spot storm that took place in April.

At this time, Jupiter's Ganymede moon moved across the storm, casting a shadow across the area, which made the Great Red Spot look like a giant eye looking back at Earth.

The eye was the result of a shadow passing over the storm(Nasa/ESA/A. Simon Goddard Space Flight Center)

"This gave the giant planet the uncanny appearance of having a pupil in the centre of a 10,000 mile-diameter 'eye'," Nasa said. "For a moment, Jupiter 'stared' back at Hubble like a one-eyed giant Cyclops."

The Great Red Spot is a persistent anticyclonic storm first discovered in 1665 by Gian Domenico Cassini.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot has been shrinking since the 1930s(Nasa/ESA)

Earlier this year, Nasa announced it has shrunk to its smallest size ever measured,with the spot measuring just 10,250 miles across.

Astronomers said the spot has been getting smaller since the 1930s. Amy Simon of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre, said: "It is apparent very small eddies are feeding into the storm.We hypothesised these may be responsible for the accelerated change by altering the internal dynamics and energy of the Great Red Spot."

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Nasa's Hubble Spots Jupiter Staring Back at us Through 'Cyclops Eye'