Category Archives: Hubble Telescope

NASA Hubble Space Telescope found a new moon in our solar system. It orbits around the third largest dwarf planet of the system, which is known as 2007 OR10 or Snow White.

Astronomers have used three different space observatories to validate that this dwarf planet has actually a moon. This discovery helps researchers to know how moons are formed.

The discovery of satellites around all of the known large dwarf planets except for Sedna means that at the time these bodies formed billions of years ago, collisions must have been more frequent, and thats a constraint on the formation models, said Csaba Kiss of the Konkoly Observatory in Budapest, Hungary. If there were frequent collisions, then it was quite easy to form these satellites, Kiss added.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into low earth orbit in 1990. Along the years it has discovered several celestial bodies in the solar system and outside of it too. This time, it showed the moon that orbits the 2007 OR10 planet, which is one of the dwarf planets of the solar system. This planet is located in the Kuiper Belt, a freezing area on the outskirts of our solar system that was created about 4.6 million years ago. The Kuiper Belt is beyond Neptune, near where Pluto and other frozen celestial bodies live.

Snow White, as it is also called, is the third largest dwarf planet. It is 1,530 kilometer-wide (950 mile). Its newly discovered moon is about 240-400 kilometers in diameter. Scientists were alerted by the observations made by the agencys Kepler Telescope.

According to NASA, there are 9 dwarf planets and Snow White is one of them. Dwarf planets are like really small planets; however, they cannot be considered like that because they dont have all the needed technical criteria to be classified as small planets.

According to previous images and research, 2007 OR10, didnt have a Moon before. Scientists believe this moon was created since the objects in that area slammed into each other more often because it is crowded by smaller bodies.

Scientists also think that the density of these bodies could be moderate. The speed of collision is also an important factor to consider since it has to be precise in order to create this new moon. Had it been too slow, it would only have created an impact crater. Had it been too fast, the collision would have produced a lot of space debris that would probably have escaped out ofthe Solar System. Their speed has a lot to do with the gravitational force made by larger celestial bodies.

According to John Stansberry, a member of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, This gravitational force of dense celestial bodies may have bumped them out of their respective orbits and also contributed to the increment of their velocities, which may later have resulted in crashes.

Source: The Cake

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Hubble Telescope finds new moon in the Solar System - Pulse Headlines

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is scheduled to take off next year and astronomers believe the super-powerful spier is experts' best hope to date of finding life beyond Earth.

The JWST is the successor to the Hubble Telescope and is much more powerful.

The successor will be able to see further into space, as well as more accurately measure the content of water, carbon dioxide and other components in the atmosphere of an exoplanet a planet outside of our solar system as well as tell scientists more about the size and distance these planets are from their host stars.

As a result, the giant telescope which sports a huge mirror to garner light, is being heralded as the best chance of finding alien life.

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With a launch scheduled for next year, scientists feel that it is only a matter of time before alien life is discovered.

Matt Mountain, director and Webb telescope scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said: What we didn't know five years ago is that perhaps 10 to 20 per cent of stars around us have Earth-size planets in the habitable zone.

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"It's within our grasp to pull off a discovery that will change the world forever.

It is going to take a continuing partnership between NASA, science, technology, the US and international space endeavours, as exemplified by the James Webb Space Telescope, to build the next bridge to humanity's future.

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Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7653, which is an emission nebula located 11 000 light-years away

Mr Mountain added: "Just imagine the moment, when we find potential signatures of life.

Imagine the moment when the world wakes up and the human race realises that its long loneliness in time and space may be over - the possibility we're no longer alone in the universe.

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However, the 6billion telescope is expected to last just five years, so its underling, Hubble, is already shortlisting planets for the newcomer to examine as scientists face a race against time, Kevin Stevenson at the University of Chicago told New Scientist.

He said: A training set is probably a good way of looking at it.

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Alien life to be discovered NEXT YEAR? James Webb Telescope 'will change world forever' - Express.co.uk

Belleville News-Democrat (blog)

Hubble Telescope sees a supernova only a fraction of a second before we do Belleville News-Democrat (blog) But since light travels at approximately 186,000 miles a second, your Hubble advance alert would be only a fraction of a millisecond (350 divided by 186,000), Kyle Stumbaugh, a science instructor and Astronomy Club adviser at Southwestern Illinois ...

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Hubble Telescope sees a supernova only a fraction of a second before we do - Belleville News-Democrat (blog)

An unexpected design flaw almost made the Hubble Space Telescope into a $1.5 billion joke, but a daring rescue mission orchestrated by the La Caada Flintridge-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory created a legend out of the blunder.

On Tuesday, JPL and Caltech will host a screening of To the Rescue, an hour long JPL-produced documentary detailing the space agencys efforts to save Hubble and three other missions that similarly went awry after launch.

It begins in the 1990s theyve ended the Cold War and NASA is trying to reinvent how it goes about its missions, to make them, particularly, less expensive. Its launching this highly anticipated mission, theres tremendous expectations, said Blaine Bagget, the documentarys director. Then, shortly after launch, they get the first images down and theyre blurry.

The head of JPL, Michael Watkins, will introduce the documentary at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in Caltechs Beckman Auditorium. The event includes remarks from Baggett and former JPL leader, Ed Stone.

Seating is free on a first-come, first served basis.

The problem, they would learn, was caused by spherical aberration, a term that meant Hubbles primary mirror was slightly too shallow. The mirrors prescription was off by a 50th of the width of a human hair, Baggett said.

The bus-sized Hubble telescope was in orbit for a month after its April 1990 launch before NASA learned of the aberration. The agency was suddenly facing a disaster that had turned this flagship mission into fodder for late-night comedians and put their scientific goals at risk.

It was like climbing to the top of Mount Everest and then suddenly, within a couple of months, sinking to the bottom of the Dead Sea the lowest point on Earth, said Ed Weiler, program scientist for Hubble at launch, in a 2009 statement recalling the mission.

But within three years, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory fixed the mistake through a complicated repair that used astronauts to install a piano-sized replacement camera that would eventually capture some of the most iconic images of our Universe ever produced. The replacement camera would be subsequently swapped out in yet another mission.

In the documentary, the efforts to save Hubble bookend tales of other ingenious solutions for NASAs Magellan, Galileo and Mars Observer missions. However, not all of them made it.

One of those three missions does not survive, but the sort of heroics the teams do on all three of those missions plus Hubble to try to fix them, is what the program is all about, Baggett said. How do you save a spacecraft that you cant touch, thats millions of miles away?

To the Rescue is seventh episode in a documentary series created by Baggett to detail JPLs history. Baggett began the work nearly 10 years ago and says theres still a few more stories left to tell.

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These are some of the greatest adventures in all of humanity and we must capture the first person accounts of these first explorers, Baggett said.

JPL plans to distribute the entire series once its finished, he said.

What: A screening of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory-produced documentary To the Rescue.

Where: Beckman Auditorium, 1200 E. California Blvd, Pasadena, CA

When: 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 23

Cost: Tickets are free, but seating is available only on a first come, first served basis.

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Learn how JPL saved the Hubble Telescope at this Caltech screening - The Pasadena Star-News

Published time: 15 May, 2017 19:06 Edited time: 15 May, 2017 20:37

Scientists exploring the origins of the universe have photographed a cluster of galaxies six billion light years away and the result is more than a little mind-bending.

Researchers working on Frontier Fields, a project aimed at gathering the earliest images of the cosmos, have used the Hubble telescope to capture images of Abell 370 and the distant field of galaxies behind it.

Hubbles picture, which is reminiscent of a beautiful piece of modern art, shows mysterious arcs of blue light bending around hundreds of yellow-white and elliptical galaxies. These arcs are the result of a phenomenon known as 'gravitational lensing', when the collective gravity of the hundreds of billions of stars warps space. The warping bends the light traveling through the cluster and drags it toward Earth.

These far-flung galaxies are too faint for Hubble to see directly, a statement on the Hubble website read. Instead, the cluster acts as a huge lens in space that magnifies and stretches images of background galaxies like a funhouse mirror. The massive gravitational field of the foreground cluster produces this phenomenon.

Abell 370 is found in the constellation Cetus, commonly known as the Sea Monster.

Light from far flung galaxies takes billions of years to reach Earth, meaning Hubbles pictures are in fact images of the distant past.

Albert Einstein first predicted in 1912 that the gravity of large objects could bend light. Later, in 1937, astronomer Fritz Zwicky suggested the phenomenon would eventually be a means for scientists to view galaxies hidden behind massive clusters.

The Hubble telescope, which celebrated the 27th anniversary of its launch last month, has been used to unlock the mysteries of the universe and, in recent times, has aided in the search for other Earth-like planets beyond our solar system.

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Hubble telescope captures spectacular image of light bending ... - RT

SpaceFlight Insider

May 15th, 2017

The James Webb Space Telescope is pushed into the clean room of Building 32. Building 32 houses Chamber A, the thermal vacuum chamber where the telescope will have its final thermal vacuum testing. Photo & Caption Credit: Chris Gunn / NASA

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) continued its long and meandering journey to space with a stop in Houston, Texas. The telescope has been moved to Johnson Space Center so it can undergo the last cryogenic test before the massive observatory is launched into space in 2018.

According to a NASA press release, the tests are designed to ensure the telescope can operate in the frigid temperatures of deep space. JWST will be placed inside Johnson Space Centers Chamber A, the same cryogenic vacuum unit used by NASA to test Apollo mission hardware.

The James Webb Space Telescope arrives at Ellington Field, in Houston, Texas, from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Photo Credit: Chris Gunn / NASA

This will be the longest and final cryogenics test for the telescope. It is a critical end-to-end test verifying the performance of the entire vehicle. Once JWST is launched and deployed, it will be stationed nearly one million miles (1.5million kilometers) from Earth at the Earth-Sun L2 (Lagrange) point a distance that makes servicing missions nearly impossible to complete.

The telescope is currently inside a NASA clean room awaiting systems checks before it will be moved into Chamber A. Once in position inside the chamber, JWST will spend 100 days in near vacuum at, according to Spaceflight Now, temperatures colder than minus 370degrees Fahrenheit (minus 190degrees Celsius).

JWST is a joint project of NASA, theEuropean Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency. It will be used to peer deep into the universe looking for the first stars that formed after the big bang or study the atmospheres of extra-solar planets.

The Webb telescope has been in development since 1996. The incredibly complex observatory is a scientific successor to the Hubble telescope but not a direct replacement. Unlike Hubble, JWST operates in infrared, looking at objects that are deeper in space than Hubble could achieve.

Moreover, JWST will have a much larger primary mirror surface area of just over 21 feet (6.5 meters), compared to Hubbles eightfeet (2.4 meters).

The telescope had previously been at Goddard Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.Its transportationrequired a combination of slow trucking and cargo flights while housed inside a protective cocoon-like enclosure.

The Webb team packaged the telescope for its highway migration to Joint Base Andrews, located just 23 miles south of Goddard. Once there,the entire truck and trailer were then loaded onto a U.S. Air Force C-5C Galaxy aircraft destined for Ellington Field in Houston. The telescope then traveled by truck to Johnson Space Center, arriving at Building 32.

Cryogenic testing is done to evaluate the ability of the large mirror array to withstand space temperatures without losing any mirror surface integrity. If any adjustment is required after launch, the mirror actuators behind each segment allow for the slightest adjustment to the focal plane. So precise are the actuators they can adjust the surface to within 1/10,000th of the width of a human hair.

Artists rendering of the James Webb Space Telescope in space. Image Credit: Northrop Grumman

The space-bound mirror surface area is what makes JWST unique, and the construction of the mirrors required a number of scientists and technicians at numerous facilities with various specialties and capabilities.

The total surface area specified by the designers required a unique honeycomb design allowing the telescope to conform to the dimensions of a rocket fairing. Additionally, the total weight of the telescope as cargo mass (about 15,000 pounds or 6,800 kilograms) demanded each mirror component only have a weight of about 90 pounds (40 kilograms).

To achieve this requirement, beryllium was used not only because of its light weight attribute but also its fantastic strength at space temperatures. This allows the mirrors to withstand the strain of launch as well asendure the temperature of space.

The mirrors are also coated in pure gold powder to allow for improved reflection of infrared light. The gold layer requires a very thin layer of glass to help protect its soft, vulnerable characteristics further complicating the mirror construction.

The previous test performed on JWST was the center of curvature test, an important optical measurement of Webbs fully assembled primary mirror. The process of assembly and testing means the telescope components traveled around the country to states including Utah, Alabama, California, Colorado, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey, and Texas.

Subsequently, the Webb telescope will then be sent along a 1,600-mile (2,600-kilometer) journey to Redondo Beach, California, where Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems will prepare the telescope system for further testing once the package is married to the spacecraft bus and sunshield.

The telescope looks at infrared light and so sunshield deployment is essential in protecting the mirror array from any undesired heat, including the warm spacecraft bus.

ESA will be providing launch services on its Ariane 5 rocket which will launch out of ELA-3 near Kourou, French Guiana. Liftoff is scheduled for October 2018.

This article was written by Joe Latrell and Jerome Strach.

Tagged: ESA James Webb Space Telescope Johnson Space Center NASA Northrop Grumman The Range

SpaceFlight Insider is a space journal working to break the pattern of bias prevalent among other media outlets. Working off a budget acquired through sponsors and advertisers, SpaceFlight Insider has rapidly become one of the premier space news outlets currently in operation. SFI works almost exclusively with the assistance of volunteers.

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James Webb Space Telescope prepares for deep freeze - SpaceFlight Insider

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Gorgeous new space photo shows two galaxies during an epic flyby Mashable A powerful space telescope orbiting Earth has spied on two galaxies in the midst of a cosmic close call 500 million light-years away. The Hubble Space ... NASA's Hubble telescope captures galaxy duo by the 'Hare'Zee News Hubble Telescope Captured Images of Galaxy Duo by the 'Hare'The Indian Tribune Passing in the night: Hubble spots 'double whammy' of individual galaxies speeding past each other at a million ...Daily Mail Science Times -Science Daily all 24 news articles »

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Gorgeous new space photo shows two galaxies during an epic flyby - Mashable

New Delhi: The US space agency NASA has released a beautiful image of the unusual galaxy IRAS 06076-2139, found in the constellation Lepus (The Hare).

The image was captured by NASA/ESA's Hubble Space Telescope.

According to NASA, Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instruments have observed the galaxy from a distance of 500 million light-years.

The particular object stands out from the crowd by actually being composed of two separate galaxies rushing past each other at about 2 million kilometers (1,243,000 miles) per hour.

The speed is most likely too fast for them to merge and form a single galaxy.

Because of their small separation of only about 20,000 light-years, the galaxies will distort one another through the force of gravity while passing each other, changing their structures on a grand scale, as reported.

Such galactic interactions are a common sight for Hubble, and have long been a field of study for astronomers.

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NASA's Hubble telescope captures galaxy duo by the 'Hare' | Zee ... - Zee News

As Star-Lord and his team head to the big screen this weekend to guard a galaxy in the Marvel universe, new images from the Hubble Space Telescope remind us that there are far more galaxies in our own universe without any superheroes to protect them from evil villains.

"Much like the eclectic group of space rebels in the upcoming film 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2', NASAs Hubble Space Telescope has some amazing superpowers, specifically when it comes to observing innumerable galaxies flung across time and space," NASA officials said in a statement that was published along with some incredible new views of galaxies in deep space.

A gorgeous galaxy cluster named Abell 370 stars in the images, which NASA released on Thursday (May 4). The cluster contains hundreds of galactic neighbors bound together by their own gravitational pull. Abell 370 lies about 4 billion light-years away in the constellation Cetus (the Sea Monster). But you can also see more distant galaxies that lie behind the cluster. [The 10 Must-Read 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Stories]

Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy cluster Abell 370.

The background galaxies in appear cloudy and distorted due to an effect called gravitational lensing. All that gravity from the hundreds of galaxies inside the cluster bands the light that comes from the other side, causing those distant objects to appear warped.

"These far-flung galaxies are too faint for Hubble to see directly, NASA officials said in the statement. "Instead, the cluster acts as a huge lens in space that magnifies and stretches images of background galaxies like a funhouse mirror." One of these warped galaxies seen in Hubble's new images is nicknamed "the Dragon" for its shape and size.

These images from the Hubble Space Telescope's Frontier Fields program features massive galaxy clusters that act as gravitational lenses in space, magnifying and stretching images of distant objects in the background that would otherwise be too small and faint for Hubble to see.

Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble telescope has provided the deepest views of the cosmos we've even seen. Unlike the superpowers of the heroes in the Marvel realm, Hubble's superpower is far from science fiction. So if and when you decide to go see "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" (which hits movie theaters Friday, May 5), maybe you'll take a moment to stop and think about the countless defenseless galaxies in the real universe that Hubble is keeping an eye on.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Paging Star-Lord! Hubble Spies Hundreds of Galaxies That Need Guarding - Space.com

First deployed in 1990, The Hubble space telescope was the first of its kind. Unencumbered by light pollution and our planets atmosphere, it has in its tenure achieved an impressive list of discoveries. Among them, its helped us better understand dark matter and dark energy, discover proto-planets and super-massive black holes, helped us fine-tune our estimate for the age of the universe13.75 billion years old, and much more. Despite its remarkable record, its getting old and is in need of retirement. So, whats going to replace it?

An even more remarkable piece of equipment, The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb). This is the most sophisticated telescopes ever created. It has a 21 ft. (6.5 meter) gold-coated, primary mirror array, six times larger in area than Hubbles. The mirror is made from 18 separate segments.

These segments are made of an ultralight substance known as beryllium. They unfold and adjust as needed and take in seven times more light than Hubbles mirror. This is an infrared telescope, meaning it picks up infrared radiation, in addition to the visible light on the electromagnetic spectrum. This makes it so powerful, it can even see through cosmic dust.

One of the gold covered segments of the mirror array. NASA.

The telescope carries other instruments including cameras and spectrometers which can detect incredibly faint signals. Another impressive feature is called the NIRSpec, which uses programmable micro-shutters that can observe up to 100 objects at once.

John Mather is an astrophysicist and the senior project scientist for Webb. He said, "We've done two decades of innovation and hard work, and this is the result we're opening up a whole new territory of astronomy." This is such a sensitive instrument, it would be able to detect an object the size of a bumble bee, as far away as the moon is from Earth, according to Mather.

Hubbles replacement is set to launch in October of next year from French Guiana. Webb will be nestled atop an Ariane 5 rocket, a heavy launcher primarily used by the European Space Agency (ESA). This mission has been a collaborative effort among NASA, the ESA, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Northrop Grumman, and the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Model of the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA.

Webb was first called the "Next Generation Space Telescope" (NGST). But a push was made to name it after James E. Webb, the second administrator of NASA, who ran the agency between 1961 and 1968. He oversaw the Apollo missions to the moon and many argue that although not a trained scientist himself, he did much for the advancement of science and space exploration. In this sense, the NGST embodies the legacy of the man.

Cutting edge space-ready technology is never cheap. The price tag for Webb all told is $8.8 billion. And just like anything breaking new ground, it comes with significant risk, which is why it's currently undergoing a battery of testing. While the Hubble was placed in low Earth orbit, the Webb is going to be positioned about a million miles (1.5 million km) away. So if something goes wrong, itll be difficult to get up there and fix it. Once placed, itll be a nail-biting six months before its even operational.

In its five-and-a-half to ten year mission, Webb will help us look back on the earliest moments of the universe, when galaxies were still in their infant stages. It'll beam back data using a high-frequency radio transmitter. Since space is so big, light can only travel so far, even at its incredible velocity. We measure distant bodies therefore in light years, or how many years it takes light to travel from there to Earth.

The 30 Doradus Nebula. A vast region found by Hubble where thousands of stars are born. Getty Images.

That means looking deeply into space is also looking back in time. For instance, it takes eight minutes for light from the sun to reach Earth. A better example, the nearest star system, Proxima Centauri, which is over four light-years away, appears to us on Earth as it was a little over four years ago. If a cataclysmic event occurred, we wouldn't see it until four years later.

In this way, Webb will allow us to see how planets, stars, and galaxies were created, and how the universe has changed over time. It will also aid in the search for exoplanets, as well as give us a closer look at newly discovered ones, for signs of water, an atmosphere, vegetation, and even intelligent life, such as any visible technology or signs of pollution. Recently, weve discovered thousands of exoplanets, including many small, Earth-like ones. So there are lots of good candidates that could potentially harbor life.

To learn more about the Webb and how it differs from the Hubble, click here:

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The Hubble Telescope's Successor Will Aid in the Search For Extraterrestrial Life - Big Think