Category Archives: Hubble Telescope

When a 31-year-old space computer doesnt work as well as it used to, its time to call in the folks who built the system decades ago.

Thats exactly what scientists repairing NASAs Hubble Space Telescope did when it failed in June. Retired staff and others who helped build the orbiting telescope returned to assist the current team, some of whom were not even born in 1990 when the telescope was first launched into space.

Thats one of the benefits of a program thats been running for over 30 years: the incredible amount of experience and expertise, says Nzinga Tull, Hubble systems anomaly response manager, in a NASA press release. Its been humbling and inspiring to engage with both the current team and those who have moved on to other projects. Theres so much dedication to their fellow Hubble teammates, the observatory and the science Hubble is famous for.

Their efforts paid off handsomely. Hubble went back online July 17 and has been relaying spectacular images back to Earth ever since. Two black-and-white photos in particular provide incredible detail of two distant galaxiesa rare view of ARP-MADORE2115-273, a system with interacting stars located 297 million light-years from Earth, and ARP-MADORE0002-503, an unusual three-tailed spiral cluster about 490 million light-years away, reports George Dvorsky for Gizmodo.

The photos were produced by a team led by astronomer Julianne Dalcanton of the University of Washington in Seattle. They are using the restored Hubble, which orbits Earth at 340 miles in altitude, to collect images of unusual galaxies.

Ill confess to having had a few nervous moments during Hubbles shutdown, but I also had faith in NASAs amazing engineers and technicians, she says in a news release posted on NASAs Hubble website.

Of course, the new images would not have been possible if older scientists had not been available to help service the telescope. The Hubble main computer shut down June 13, placing all instruments in safe mode. When that happened, NASA scrambled to contact team members who had worked on the telescope three and four decades earlier, reports Tariq Malik of Space.com.

While some of the retired staff connected remotely because of Covid-19 restrictions, others still working at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland pored over old manuscripts and documents looking for clues to fix the problem.

After weeks of head scratching and problem solving, old and young engineers determined a glitch in the computers power control unit was the likely culprit. NASA did a work-around by switching to backup units and rebooting the system, writes Brandon Specktor for Space.com.

Im thrilled to see that Hubble has its eye back on the universe, once again capturing the kind of images that have intrigued and inspired us for decades, says NASA administrator Bill Nelson in the press release. This is a moment to celebrate the success of a team truly dedicated to the mission. Through their efforts, Hubble will continue its 32nd year of discovery, and we will continue to learn from the observatorys transformational vision.

Now that the repaired Hubble Space Telescope is running as normal, its expected to work in tandem with the new James Webb Space Telescope when its slated to launch later this yearunless the new telescope faces further delays, Specktor reports.

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Retired NASA Engineers Return to Fix Hubble Telescope - Smithsonian Magazine

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) The Hubble Telescope is back online.

It was sidelined by a computer glitch for over a month and its camera eye was closed. And that put YSU professor Dr. Patrick Durrell in a bit of a panic.

When it had computer problems last month, I was sitting here, Im still hoping to get data, Durrell said.

Every year, Durrell routinely writes proposals to collaborate with colleagues and friends to apply for time with the telescope.

Durrell got notice last week that two projects he was on received time with Hubble from the thousands of ideas submitted.

He was just waiting for the telescope to be fixed, and it resumed operations last Saturday.

Its wonderful from a science point of view but also a personal point of view, Im like yes! he said.

Both projects will look at dwarf galaxies.

Durrell wants to understand them a little more. He says theyre close enough you can see some of the stars and star clusters in them, and you can see them in more detail with Hubble.

He believes its important to understand how galaxies formed in all sizes.

If we take a patch of sky, theres a few big, big galaxies, a few more Milky Way-sized galaxies and then lots of these little dwarf galaxies. So how do they fit in? Durrell asks.

Hubble has been orbiting Earth since 1990. Its the length of a bus and travels five miles every second.

Its been used to check out a galaxy 13 billion light years away.

Durrell will get 15 orbits to have Hubbles cameras point at the dwarf galaxies to take pictures.

We need to study, is this a new galaxy making stars now or has it always been there and its just been hanging around for 10 billion years? We dont know until we get the Hubble data, Durrell said.

The professor expects to get the data some time in the next year to 18 months.

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YSU professor has 2 projects with the Hubble Telescope - WKBN.com

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently shared an image of a birds eye view of two interacting galaxies in NGC 6745. The image has been shared on NASA Hubbles official Instagram account and has gathered over 70,000 likes 100 comments.

SEE ALSO: NASA Hubble Shares Beautiful Video Of An Intricate Nebula NGC 5189!

The caption for the image states, The aftermath of an intergalactic collision This #HubbleClassic features a birds eye view of two interacting galaxies in NGC 6745. Gas and dust clouds collide, triggering star formation under high velocities and pressure. NGC 6745 is located around 200 million light-years away and is spread about 80,000 light-years across.

Resembling the shape of a birds head, this cosmic display showcases the aftermath of a damaging collision between two galaxies, with hot, blue stars indicating stellar formation. Check out this stunning image:

NASA Hubble is regularly sharing new images of our universe on Instagram. So, if youre a space nerd, you should keep tabs on the Hubble Instagram page. Space also recently shared an image and intricate Nebula NGC 5189! It has been shared by NASAs official Hubble Space Telescope Instagram page where it has received more than 90,000 views and over 100 comments. People have reacted to the video with comments like this is amazing, wow, and so beautiful among others.

SEE ALSO: This Tool By NASA Tells You What Hubble Telescope Observed In Space On Your Birthday!

NASA recently also shared an image of a star cluster in this #HubbleFriday image known by many names: Dun 538, H 3688, and Pismis 25. NGC 6380 is a globular cluster, which is a spherical group of stars bound together by gravity. Globular clusters often contain some of the oldest stars in their galaxies!

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NASA Hubble Shares Beautiful Image Of Two Interacting Galaxies In NGC 6745! - Mashable India

Images of the Eagle Nebula show the Hubble Space Telescope's ability to capture pictures in both visible (left) and infrared (right) light. NASA is celebrating the successful restart of the telescope's payload computer, opening the door to more observations. NASA hide caption

Images of the Eagle Nebula show the Hubble Space Telescope's ability to capture pictures in both visible (left) and infrared (right) light. NASA is celebrating the successful restart of the telescope's payload computer, opening the door to more observations.

The Hubble Space Telescope is returning to operation more than a month after its original payload computer shut down. NASA said it has successfully switched over to its backup computer and while the process of bringing the system back online is slow, the agency has started to bring science instruments out of "safe mode."

"There was cheering in the control center" on Thursday night when word came that NASA had managed to restore the payload computer, James Jeletic, Hubble's deputy project manager, told NPR.

"There's a big sense of relief," Jeletic said.

"We believed that this all would work, but, you know, you're dealing with the space business and all kinds of surprises can come your way. But we didn't get any surprises."

As for when the telescope will beam its first breathtaking images back to Earth since the restart, the wait should be a short one.

"The first observations will hopefully be done over the weekend," Jeletic said. Accounting for the time it takes to receive and process the data, he predicted, "you probably would see the first images come out sometime in the beginning of next week."

The relief and joy comes more than a month after the space telescope stopped collecting images and other data on June 13 when the payload computer that controls its science instruments suddenly shut down. (The computer that runs the Hubble spacecraft remained online.)

For weeks, NASA scientists worked on possible solutions to bring the payload computer back, but none of those ideas worked.

Initial system tests struggled to isolate the problem a process complicated by the hundreds of miles separating the Hubble team from the computer and other components. But as every system failure stubbornly remained, the team came to believe that only one glitch would account for such widespread problems: the power control unit, which sends electricity to all the hardware.

To work through the problem, the team studied schematics of the original designs that date back decades.

"We even had people come out of retirement who were experts in these areas on Hubble to help us," Jeletic said.

The system's successful restart, he added, "has a lot to say for the people who designed the spacecraft 40 years ago."

Hubble's scientific payload is running on its backup computer system, he said, because the team had already set it up to run on secondary units while working on the outage. It opted to stay on the backup system, Jeletic said, to simplify the restart process.

Hubble carries backups of all its components, part of the original engineers' plans to cope with such problems. As of now, it's down to just one power control unit. But the Hubble team also thinks there's a chance the power unit might simply fix itself over time.

Outlining two ways that could happen, Jeletic said the unit may simply need to sit cold for a while to let electricity dissipate. There's also a chance it failed due to "circuit drift," he said, explaining that the circuit may have drifted out of its operational setting and that it might simply drift back.

The successful restart is just the latest comeback for Hubble, which was originally scheduled for only 15 years of service. It was placed into orbit in April 1990 after hitching a ride aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

Hubble's main onboard computer is an Intel 486 computer whose 25 megahertz speed was the best available (and rated for space travel) when astronauts upgraded the system around the turn of the century.

"It has about 2 megabytes of memory," Jeletic said. "So you can compare that to your latest iPhone. It's very, very primitive by today's standard of what you wear on your wrist, but it's more than enough for what we need to do."

Those components, which would be deemed vintage or simply obsolete in today's computer market, are responsible for sending more than 1.5 million observations of nebulae, galaxies and star clusters back to Earth's surface. And now that work will continue.

"Today, we still only use about 60[%] to 70% of its memory and its capacity to do all the things that Hubble does," Jeletic said.

But Hubble is now in a situation many smartphone users may identify with: While tech support is still available, hardware support has been discontinued since NASA completed its final servicing mission in 2009.

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Hobbled Hubble Telescope Springs Back To Life On Its Backup System - NPR

The worlds largest telescope the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is under construction in Chile. When it captures its first light, sometime in 2027 or 2028, Irish adaptive optics technology will be there to ensure it sees further and with greater clarity than any telescope in human history.

The opportunity for Irish astronomers to take part in the ELT project arose when the government decided to join the European Southern Observatory (ESO) the top intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe in 2018. Membership cost 14.66 million, with an annual fee of 3.5 million.

A team of researchers at NUI Galway, led by Dr Nicholas Devaney, with expertise in adaptive optics are involved in the ELT project as part of a consortium also involving the Grenoble Institute for Planetary Sciences and Astrophysics and the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) in Italy.

The consortium will design and manage the construction of an instrument on the ELT, called multi-conjugate adaptive optics relay (MAORY), which corrects image distortion due to atmosphere blurring. The NUIG team were invited to join the MAORY project based on their scientific reputation.

The Galway team is responsible for the device we call the test unit that is needed to pass all the performance on this domain here in Europe and then also when we arrive on the mountains in Chile, says Paolo Ciliegi, an astronomer at INAF; the overall principal investigator of MAORY.

They put on the table their expertise in adaptive optics and also the construction of this test unit, Ciliegi adds.

The construction of the ELT at an altitude of some 10,000 feet on top of a mountain called Cerro Amazones has halted due to the Covid situation in Chile. The site is in the Atacama Desert, a high plateau covering an area slightly bigger than Ireland, and made up mostly of stones, salt and sand.

The altitude puts it above the cloud line, so there is very little precipitation, which can distort telescope images of space. That dryness this is the driest desert on the planet outside the poles make it an ideal location for astronomers to view the heavens. Yet the ELT must still peer up and out through about 480km of atmosphere, with the distortion that this brings.

When you feel the bumpiness in an airplane thats the atmospheric turbulence, says Devaney. The turbulent atmosphere, he says, is made up of bubbles of air with differing temperatures. The speed of light through air varies slightly with the temperature of the air through which it travels.

The net effect of this is to reduce the sharpness of images from space that a ground telescope can gather. That introduces distortions in the light which leads to a blurry image instead of a sharper image, he adds.

Adaptive optics technology works hard to overcome such atmospheric distortion. This task is akin to gathering light that has been bent and scattered in water and rebuilding it into its underformed original form. This is the job that the MAORY instrument will be performing for the ELT.

A limitation of adaptive optics technology up to now has been that it relies on a natural constellation of bright stars to sharpen distorted images from an optical telescope viewing a big area of sky, but such constellations are not always available. In order to get over this issue scientists use guide stars.

The ELT is going to generate six artificial laser-generated guide stars which will act like a natural constellation of six bright stars to facilitate adaptive optics to work wherever the ELT is pointing towards in the sky. It has proved a huge challenge over decades to get the lasers up to sufficient power to produce bright enough guide stars to facilitate adaptive optics.

After much research scientists decided to use a sodium wavelength for producing guide stars. This is because there is a natural layer of charged sodium ions in the Earths atmosphere at an altitude of 90km, which can be excited and energized by a laser so that it looks just like a natural star.

This is perfect for astronomers, says Devaney. Its like the ions were put out there specifically for that purpose. It means that it is possible to make constellations of artificial guide stars using the six lasers on the ELT.

An optical telescope works by gathering light through mirrors. The bigger its mirrors the more light the telescope can gather and the farther it can see. The main mirror of the ELT will be an enormous 39 metres ( 127.9ft), in diameter. Thats roughly equivalent to 21 men, six feet tall, lying head to toe.

The designers knew that technically it wasnt possible to construct the main mirror as one piece. They also knew that it would be difficult to carry large mirror segments to a mountain top. A decision was therefore made to separately make 798 hexagonal-shaped segments; each 1.5 metres wide weighing 250kg, which, when aligned carefully together, would make up the main ELT mirror.

The mirror segments had to be aligned with nano-metre precision, and that alignment has to be maintained as the telescope moves and tracks objects. There are some 9,000 tiny sensors arranged around each segment so that any kind of motion in one segment with respect to another is accounted for.

There are also actuators that bend the mirrors into optimum shape. The biggest optical telescopes today have three mirrors. The ELT will have five.

In return for Devaneys team working on the adaptive optics on the ELT his astronomer colleagues at NUIG are to be offered ELT observation time. One of those scientists hoping to use the ELT to advance his work is physicist Dr Matt Redman, director of the centre of astronomy at NUIG.

Redman is interested in planetary nebulae. These are badly named celestial objects as they have nothing to do with planets. They looked like planets when viewed by the first telescopes so thats how they got the name. They might better be described as the glowing shell of gas ejected from a dying star.

These nebulae are observed in a variety of shapes including butterfly-shaped, elliptical, spherical, ring-shaped, bi-polar, cylindrical and round.

The big mystery is that the Sun is round, spherical and will turn into one of these objects, and these objects are not round and spherical, says Redman. The most likely idea is a companion star, or even a companion planet, disturbing the material as the dying star throws it off, he explains.

I am hoping the MAORY will be able to get right into the centre of these objects and we might even see that shaping mechanism happening, he adds.

There are some who question the economic and scientific logic of building expensive telescopes on the top of Chilean mountains in order to see through atmospheric distortion when it is possible to put a space telescope, like the Hubble telescope, into orbit up where atmospheric distortion is not a factor.

The justification lies in the cost of getting telescopes into orbit against building them on Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope, which had a primary mirror 2.4metres wide, cost 2.5 billion (today equivalent) to get into orbit and operational. The ELT will cost some 1.3 billion; about half the price.

This point of view holds that although they do different things, ground-based telescopes like ELT give more scientific bang for your buck than space telescopes. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), set to launch in November, will cost 8.2 billion.

The ELT sees farther, clearer. You are able to collect a lot more, like with a 39-metre mirror, says Devaney. You are able to see further away and see things that are much fainter, such as really faint galaxies. The ELT will be able to see things that are fainter than was possible with the Hubble.

The huge jump in astronomical capability that the ELT will provide is likely to trigger a round of unexpected scientific findings that will change our understanding of the Universe and how it was formed in its earliest days.

Weve seen it before. For example, in 1998 data from the Hubble led scientists to conclude the universe was expanding at an ever accelerating rate. Each time there is a big step forward like this it leads to a huge mushrooming of astronomical activities and discoveries, says Devaney.

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Worlds largest telescope will see better with Irish technology - The Irish Times

The Hubble Telescope's payload computer is broken. NASA has spent over a week trying to fix it. USA TODAY

NASA has spent more than a week trying to fix the Hubble Telescope's computer hardware issues.

The problem: a1980s-era payload computer, which is supposed to control and coordinate scientific instruments aboard the spacecraft and monitor them for health and safety purposes, stopped working June 13, according to a NASA statement.

"After the halt occurred ... the main computer stopped receiving a keep-alive signal, which is a standard handshake between the payload and main spacecraft computers to indicate all is well," NASA said in the statement.

The payload computer is part of the Science Instrument Command and Data Handling module, which was replaced in 2009 during the last astronaut-servicing mission to Hubble, which launched in 1990.

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The main computer has put all the scientific instruments into safe mode. An attempt to restart the computer the next day failed.

Further attempts to switch to a backup memory module and obtain diagnostic information on both modules also failed.

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured astonishing images of deep space, such as the trailing arms of NGC 2276, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Cepheus, 120 million light-years away from Earth.(Photo: -, ESA/HUBBLE/AFP via Getty Images)

The Hubble Space Telescope operations team told USA TODAYthat initial indications pointed to a degrading computer memory module as the source of the halt, but the team is still collecting data.

"The operations team will be running tests and collecting more information on the system to further isolate the problem.The science instruments will remain in a safe mode state until the issue is resolved," the statement said.

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Theteam told USA TODAY that the computer has on several occasions locked up or froze. In those cases,the computer has been restarted and normal science operations were restored.

"This is similar to your laptop periodically freezing and needing a reboot," the teamsaid, adding that there is not a firm timeline for bringing the computer online again.

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Hubble Telescope's payload computer is down. NASA has spent days trying to fix it. - USA TODAY

NASAs Hubble space telescope has captured a stunning image of a galaxys spiral pattern.

A joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency, the Hubble telescope has captured a host of beautiful images since its launch in 1990. In its image of the day on Friday NASA highlighted an image of galaxy NGC 5468 that was caught by Hubble.

The galaxy has been home to a number of supernovae, or explosions that occur when stars die.

GHOST IN SPACE: NASAS HUBBLE TELESCOPE CAPTURES STUNNING NEBULA PIC

Despite being just over 130 million light-years away, the orientation of the galaxy with respect to us makes it easier to spot these new stars as they appear; we see NGC 5468 face on, meaning we can see the galaxys loose, open spiral pattern in beautiful detail in images such as this one from theNASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, said the ESA, in a statement posted on NASAs website.

Galaxy NGC 5468. (Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Li et al.)

A light-year, which measures distance in space, equals 6 trillion miles.

Last year NASA showed off a remarkable image of a "ghost nebula"captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

GIANT BLACK HOLE 'SHOULD NOT EVEN EXIST,' STUNNED SCIENTISTS SAY

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990. NASA notes that the orbiting telescope was required to last 15 years, but has been in operation for more than 28. The Advanced Camera for Surveys was installed in 2002 but suffered a power supply failure in 2007. It was repaired by astronauts during a servicing mission in 2009.

Earlier this year the telescope suffered a camera glitch after software was incorrectly loaded onto one of its key instruments.

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NASA partners with the European Space Agency on the telescope, which is managed from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Fox News Zoe Szathmary contributed to this article.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers

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NASAs Hubble space telescope captures stunning galaxy ...

The legendary Hubble telescope captured an intriguing cosmic cloud a cloud that makes its own light.

Called an "emissions nebula," it's a bright cloud whose gases get excited by radiation from nearby stars, and ultimately emit light. (In other words, this isn't starlight isn't being reflected off the gas.)

The right side of this image, however, is darkened by a great cloud of dust, which blocks light from reaching the Hubble Space Telescope.

Generally, nebulae are "enormous clouds of dust and gas occupying the space between the stars," explains NASA. They can form in different ways, sometimes as leftovers of exploded stars.

SEE ALSO: The space race forged immortal rock and roll guitars

In the coming decades and beyond, the citizens of Earth will likely be treated to bounties of more glowing space objects, and in unprecedented detail. That's because NASA and its space partners plan to launch a giant next-generation telescope in Oct. 2021. It's called the James Webb Space Telescope, and it's the most powerful space telescope ever built.

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Hubble photo shows cosmic cloud making its very own bright light - Mashable

NASA Hubble just celebrated its 31st birthday last month on April 24 and not a lot of people are aware of this but you can actually find out what NASA Hubble observed in space on your birthday! The tool was released by NASA on Hubbles 30th anniversary and its really exciting to learn about all the cosmic wonders it observed.

SEE ALSO: NASA Hubble Shares Trippy Image Of A Celestial Lightsaber Called HH 24!

For the uninitiated, NASAs Hubble space telescope is a large telescope in space that was launched back in 1990. Its almost as large as a school bus in size and travels around Earth at about 5 miles per second, explains NASA. Hubble uses advanced technology and equipments to capture clear and crisp pictures of planets, stars and galaxies in our universe. For instance, check out this stunning image of a beautiful "evil eye" galaxy in the sky that was captured by Hubble.

From seeing stars being born to observing galaxies that are trillions of miles away from Earth, Hubble has seen it all. It explores the universe 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This means that Hubble captures something exciting every day of the year and that also includes your birthday. Apart from capturing shots of our universe, Hubble images have also helped scientists gain deeper insights about space.

SEE ALSO: NASAs Hubble Space Telescope Captures How A Giant Planet Grows!

Now that we know what NASAs Hubble Space Telescope is all about, lets take a look at how exactly you can find out what Hubble saw on your birthday. Just visit this official NASA website where you will have to enter the day and month of your birthday. Then click 'submit' and thats it! The tool will present results of Hubbles observation on your birthday along with additional details.

For instance, let's enter May 15 in the tool. It shows that Hubble observed red spots on Jupiter on May 15, 2008. Cool, right? Go ahead, share with your friends and have fun with this tool!

Image used is for representation purpose only.

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This Tool By NASA Tells You What Hubble Telescope Observed In Space On Your Birthday! - Mashable India

FP TrendingMay 05, 2021 19:24:14 IST

To celebrate the 30 anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has launched a tool that lets you find out which celestial object the Hubble Space Telescope captured on your birthday. The space telescope works 24x7 keeping its watchful eye on the universe. It was on 24 April 1990, that the space telescope was launched and was released into space the very next day. It has changed our understanding of the universe and the world of astronomy has never been the same.

Unencumbered by the clouds, Hubble and by extension, scientists have a clear view of the universe and all it has to offer. It is to observe some of the most distant stars and galaxies along with the planets in our solar system.

The Hubble Space Telescope has completed 30 years in space. Image courtesy: NASA

The user only needs to select the date and month of their birth from the drop-down list and click submit. For eg., if your birthday is 8 December, Hubble saw the remnant of Supernova 1987A which is a stellar explosion in a nearby galaxy witnessed by astronomers in 1987. It glows because a shock wave of material unleashed by the stellar blast formed a ring of gas around it.

You can click here to find the tool.

Earlier this week, NASA had released a celebratory image of one of the brightest stars in our galaxy. It is named AG Carinae and located approximately 20,000 light-years away. As per the American space agency, stars like AG Carinae are among the biggest in the cluster.

Not just that, NASA has been regularly sharing spectacular images on its social media handles that have been captured by the telescope. According to NASA, the Hubble can detect objects like seeing a pair of fireflies in Tokyo that are less than 10 feet apart from Washington.

https://gadgets.ndtv.com/science/news/nasa-hubble-space-telescope-tool-birthday-images-website-30th-anniversary-launch-2427716

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Space Cam: Now, check out what NASA's Hubble telescope captured in space on your birthday - Firstpost