NASA Releases First Images from the Hubble Space Telescope After Upgrades and Repairs had Been Made in May by Space Shuttle Astronauts

 

"This is the first image NASA has released from the Hubble Space Telescope since it became fully functional after being repaired by space shuttle astronauts in May. Hubble’s newly repaired camera captured this image on June 13 and July 8 of a spiral galaxy in the Big Dipper constellation 6 million light years away."

-WIRED SCIENCE

Writing for WIRED SCIENCE Betsy Mason reports that NASA has begun releasing images obtained from the newly repaired camera on board the Hubble Space Telescope. The first image is of a spiral galaxy 6 million light years away from the Earth located in the constellation Ursa Major.

WIRED SCIENCE's Alexis Madrigal provides more on Hubble's first eight, clearer images of deep space objects and writes that: "The 19-year-old telescope is now more powerful than it’s ever been. Two new instruments — the Wide Field Camera 3 and Cosmic Origins Spectrograph — are ready for action."

 

Planetary Nebula NGC 6302

"The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), a new camera aboard the Hubble Space Telescope, snapped this image of the planetary nebula, catalogued as NGC 6302, but more popularly called the Bug Nebula, or Butterfly Nebula. NGC 6302 lies within the Milky Way, roughly 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. The glowing gas is the star’s outer layers, expelled over about 2,200 years. The “butterfly” stretches for more than 2 light-years, which is about half the distance from the Sun to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri."

Image and caption: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

 

Carina Nebula

"These two images of a huge pillar of star birth demonstrate how observations taken in visible (top) and in infrared light (bottom) by Hubble reveal dramatically different and complementary views of an object.

Composed of gas and dust, the pillar resides in a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina."

Image and caption: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

  

 Omega Centauri

"Hubble snapped this panoramic view of a colorful assortment of 100,000 stars residing in the crowded core of a giant star cluster.

The image reveals a small region inside the massive globular cluster Omega Centauri, which boasts nearly 10 million stars. Globular clusters, ancient swarms of stars united by gravity, are the homesteaders of our Milky Way. The stars in Omega Centauri are between 10 billion and 12 billion years old. The cluster lies about 16,000 light-years from Earth."

Image and caption: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

  
 

Stephan’s Quintet, also known as Hickson Compact Group 92

"A clash among members of a famous galaxy quintet reveals an assortment of stars across a wide color range, from young blue stars to aging red stars.

This portrait of Stephan’s Quintet, also known as Hickson Compact Group 92, was taken by the new Wide Field Camera 3. Stephan’s Quintet, as the name implies, is a group of five galaxies. The name, however, is a bit of a misnomer. Studies have shown that group member NGC 7320, at upper left, is actually a foreground galaxy about seven times closer to Earth than the rest of the group."

Image and caption: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

Supernova Remnant N132D

"The wispy, glowing, magenta structures in this image are the remains of a star 10 to 15 times the mass of the Sun that we would have seen exploding as a supernova 3,000 years ago. The remnant’s fast-moving gas is plowing into the surrounding gas of the galaxy, creating a supersonic shock wave in the surrounding medium and making the material glow.

The Hubble visible-light image reveals, deep within the remnant, a crescent-shaped cloud of pink emission from hydrogen gas and soft purple wisps that correspond to regions of glowing oxygen. A dense background of colorful stars is also visible.

"Probing this tattered gaseous relic, the newly installed Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope detected pristine gas ejected by the doomed star that has not yet mixed with the gas in the interstellar medium. The supernova remnant, called N132D, resides in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small companion galaxy of the Milky Way located 170,000 light-years away. The resulting spectrum, taken in ultraviolet light, shows glowing oxygen and carbon in the remnant."

Image and caption: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

 

Galaxy Cluster Abell 370

"The Hubble Space Telescope’s newly repaired Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) has peered nearly 5 billion light years away to resolve intricate details in the galaxy cluster Abell 370.

"Abell 370 is one of the very first galaxy clusters where astronomers observed the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, where the warping of space by the cluster’s gravitational field distorts the light from galaxies lying far behind it. This is manifested as arcs and streaks in the picture, which are the stretched images of background galaxies.

"Gravitational lensing proves a vital tool for astronomers when measuring the dark matter distribution in massive clusters, since the mass distribution can be reconstructed from its gravitational effects."

Image and caption: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

Doomed Star Eta Carinae

"The signature balloon-shaped clouds of gas blown from a pair of massive stars called Eta Carinae have tantalized astronomers for decades. Eta Carinae has a volatile temperament, prone to violent outbursts over the past 200 years.

"Eta Car A is one of the most massive and most visible stars in the sky. Because of the star’s extremely high mass, it is unstable and uses its fuel very quickly, compared to other stars. Such massive stars also have a short lifetime, and we expect that Eta Carinae will explode within a million years.

"Eta Carinae is 7,500 light-years away in the constellation Carina."

Image and caption: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

 

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 6217

  "This image of barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217 is the first image of a celestial object taken with the newly repaired Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. The camera was restored to operation during the STS-125 servicing mission in May to upgrade Hubble.

"The barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217 was photographed on June 13 and July 8, 2009, as part of the initial testing and calibration of Hubble’s ACS.

"The galaxy lies 6 million light-years away in the north circumpolar constellation Ursa Major."

Image and caption: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

All celestial object descriptions provided by WIRED SCIENCE

NASA's Troubled Path for Manned Missions to the Moon and Mars Faces Uncertain Future

JOHN SCHWARTZ reports in the New York Times that NASA's attempts "to replace the nation’s aging space shuttles" with a newly designed and never flown rocket system known as the Ares I rocket and the space craft known as the Orion is proving to be technically difficult, expensive and politically vexing. "The issues have become a focus of the members of the presidential transition team dealing with NASA, and the space program could undergo a transformation after Barack Obama takes office." Another significant problem regards the transition from the current space shuttle fleet to the new rocket and space capsule system. There is the definite possibility that there will be a five year long window between the retirement of the shuttle systems and the completion and launch of Ares I and Orion. During this estimated five year period, the United States will not have the ability to put humans into space. The U.S. would have to rely on other nations; Russia being most often mentioned, to get our astronauts to the International Space Station. This situation has caused a great deal of concern among many Americans and alternative means for U.S. controlled missions into space using current Atlas and Delta rockets are being hastily discussed. In addition: "Pressure has grown to keep the shuttles flying. In July, former Senator John Glenn of Ohio said in testimony before the House Science and Technology Committee that he favored flying the shuttles until the Constellation craft were ready to fly" explains Mr. Schwartz. Glenn also remarked at the hearing that: “I never thought I would see the day when the world’s richest, most powerful, most accomplished spacefaring nation would have to buy tickets from Russia to get up to our station,.." Mr. Schwartz further explains similar views expressed by the Obama team Assessing NASA: "Continuing shuttle flights has also been proposed by the New Democracy Project, a group with strong ties to John D. Podesta, a co-chairman of the Obama transition team.” The most pressing question asks; which path into space in the near term and over the long range of years will the United States decide upon?