Hubble’s 18th Birthday of 100,000-orbits
This representative color image of NGC 2074 was taken on August 10, 2008, with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Red shows emission from sulphur atoms, green from glowing hydrogen, and blue from glowing oxygen. NASA/ESA/M. Livio (STScI)
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“This morning, the greatest scientific instrument since Galileo’s telescope has reached another great milestone - its 100,000th orbit around the Earth. Hubble has given us amazing insight into the origins of our universe, and I’m so proud of the men and women at Goddard and the Space Telescope Science Institute for their contributions and dedication to these great discoveries,” Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., chairwoman of the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittee that funds NASA said in a statement. “The entire world is looking forward to the Hubble servicing mission in October 2008, when Hubble will get new scientific instruments, new batteries and new gyroscopes. The servicing mission will extend Hubble’s life and give it a more powerful view of our universe. Hubble is the telescope that could, and its best years are ahead of it!”
Eighteen years of history have successfully passed for the NASA Hubble Telescope, approaching its final repair mission this coming October before the end of the space shuttle visits, allowing Hubble to continue through 2013. During its famous 100,000-orbital voyage, today is the day NASA is celebrating both the Hubble and the beautiful Tarantula nebula image in unison as one team. Orbiting Earth about every 97 minutes, it is at least 360 miles above Earth’s surface.
Near the star cluster NGC 2074 is the most active star-forming region in our local galaxies. Located 170,000-light years from our planet, this image is one of the most beautiful ones every photographed and spreading through the Internet like fire. According to NASA it is full of images “containing dramatic ridges, valleys of dust, serpent-like “pillars of creation”, and gaseous filaments glowing fiercely under torrential ultraviolet radiation”.
What makes it even more interesting is the report by NASA which says that the nebula wall is slowly eroding away by the high-energy radiation from young hot star clusters. They also report that possibly another developing star cluster possibly may be hidden beneath the image’s “circle of brilliant blue gas”.
NASA reports that “Assuming the mission launches on time, it will be the last visit to Hubble before NASA scrambles to complete construction of the International Space Station before the shuttle is retired in 2010.” October is a distance away, so hopefully things will turn out well.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 3:47 pm and is filed under Space Agency News, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
