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Space Science

Hubble Snaps Farthest / Oldest Galaxy 265

Posted by michael from the telephoto dept.
starannihilator writes "Astronomers use gravitational lensing, a magnifying effect caused by the gravity / mass of galaxies, to capture images of the farthest / oldest galaxy known - from when the universe was just 750 million years old. Stories from the BBC, Sign On San Diego, West Hawaii Today, or Mercury News."
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Hubble Snaps Farthest / Oldest Galaxy More

Hubble Snaps Farthest / Oldest Galaxy

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  • Good Promo for Hubble (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mphase ( 644838 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:10AM (#8292357) Homepage
    Hubble needs this sort of thing to keep it serviced. This is very interesting and in my mind at least partially justifies Hubble.

    • Re:Good Promo for Hubble (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:26AM (#8292405)
      The picture. [hubblesite.org] This site has bigger versions [hubblesite.org] of the image as well as a more in-depth story [hubblesite.org].

      On an unrelated note, they also have an awesome wallpaper gallery [hubblesite.org].


      • It's just amazing how much space and matter is out there. Seeing these pictures makes me wonder, though, what would the universe look with 1000 times as wide of a picture? What if we could take that massive picture every hour and view it in high speed over a million year timeframe? Is there some much large system that all these galaxies are orbiting around?

    • Re:Good Promo for Hubble (Score:5, Informative)

      by MasterSLATE ( 638125 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:29AM (#8292416) Homepage Journal
      I don't think it matters though.. Didn't NASA already make the decision to cut Hubble?

      wired article [wired.com]

      • NASA Didn't Decide - O'Keefe Did (Score:5, Interesting)

        by jmichaelg ( 148257 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @07:53AM (#8292807) Journal
        The decision was a unilateral decision on O'Keefe's part. He's been called to account by Senator Barbara Mikulski.

        In typical cya fashion, O'Keefe called on Harold Gehman, who led the Columbia accident inquiry, to review the decision. It's a bit of neener neener on O'Keefe's part because Gehman's commission nailed NASA for sloppy safety management policies.

        What O'Keefe is saying to Gehman is "Look you SOB - you try running an agency that's being pulled 20 different ways and see if you don't start cutting corners."

        Problem for O'Keefe is that there are plenty of ideas [nytimes.com] on how to both service Hubble and adhere to the Gehman's commission's advice. Not surprisingly, NASA management choses to ignore its engineers [nytimes.com] instead of listen.

        Nasa will be well rid of Mr. O'Keefe when he leaves. Next time, maybe the powers that be will appoint someone with an engineering background to run the agency.

      • Re:Good Promo for Hubble (Score:5, Interesting)

        by asdf 101 ( 703879 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @08:23AM (#8292984)
        Yes, they decided to cut the serice support for Hubble.. then -- in the face of public criticism -- spoke about possibly reviewing their decision.. and have now decided to tank Hubble anyway.

        For anybody who wants to toe the current administrations line on Hubble that it is too risky to service -- sorry mate, that theory is bollocks.

        Give it a thought and it's clear that this is just an blatant attempt at politicking and penny-pinching -- save a few pennies here and a few there and look we can set up a "courier" service to the moon to fetch us some more moon rocks. I'm all for space-endeavour and for satisfying the human spirit for exploration, but I fail to understand the merit of a kennedyesque initiative that cannibalises a fully functional golden goose.

        And if you want to talk about the risk of using the shuttles to service Hubble, the shuttle's terrific performance record itself should be enough to catch you on the wrong foot. Given the high complexity of these missions (we're talking "rocket-science" here right?!), the risk has clearly been marginalised given that only 2 out of 100+ missions have failed -- and those too out of an avoidable complacent attitute to safety at NASA itself.

        When Columbia was lost, it was followed by a constant banter about the changing culture at NASA, but if they've changed, it only to now wear their complacency on the other foot. It's apparent that they have graduated from risk aversion to planning short sightedness.

        How else can you explain the fact that they are "shying" from spending a few hundred million dollars to extend by a significant percentage the life of a mission that they have initially spend billions to get rolling itself. If NASA had a wife called M@ry, I can just about see M@ry being called upon to bring the shotgun so that her hubby can shoot himself in atleast one foot.

        On JWT as a replacement for Hubble, all along JWT was intended to complement Hubble, not to supplement it. And besides, JWT going to be operational only by ~2011. Twiddle-thumbs time then for all the people hoping to have put in research hours on an otherwise fully operational tool.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:36AM (#8292435)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Good Promo for Hubble (Score:5, Informative)

        by 22mcdaniel ( 713698 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:49AM (#8292458) Journal
        If you're refering to the James Webb telescope, a supplemental page to the one you linked says a launch date isn't scheduled until August of 2011.

      • Re:Good Promo for Hubble (Score:5, Insightful)

        by RevRigel ( 90335 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:58AM (#8292480)
        James Webb doesn't cover the same spectrum that Hubble does. Visual and UV will be completely ignored by it. No replacement for Hubble is in the works, and UV coverage can't be obtained from Earth-based telescopes. This has been well-covered before -- please inform yourself before you recklessly cast aspersions on a space project in typical sissy fashion.

        • Re:Good Promo for Hubble (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Docrates ( 148350 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @07:22AM (#8292682) Homepage
          You can't have it both ways.

          Listening to O'keefe on a press conference about a month ago, when he addressed the Hubble issue in detail, it all became clear to me: It's pure politics.

          After the CAIB, he was blasted, questioned and doubted to no end, so what does a skilled polititian do? cut your losses and move on. Well, he did just that. So now he's gonna follow the CAIB like it's the road to salvation. To the letter.

          The CAIB puts forward a number of requirements for shuttle flights, including the ability to service the Shuttle via ISS if something goes wrong...among a host of other "inconvenient" requirements.

          O'keefe decided to follow the CAIB to the letter so that means that going to the hubble will "break the laws" of the CAIB (Hubble is in an entirely different, incompatible orbit...still you'd think that being the thing called SHUTTLE it shouldn't be an issue, but it is)

          So servicing the Hubble will violate his mandate to play it safest and thus it won't happen because it's "too risky" according to the CAIB mantra.

          • Re:Good Promo for Hubble (Score:3, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward
            NASA: Now Afraid of Space Agency

            credit to whoever came up with this joke somewhere else in /.

      • Re:Good Promo for Hubble (Score:5, Informative)

        by dafoomie ( 521507 ) <dafoomie@@@hotmail...com> on Monday February 16, 2004 @06:14AM (#8292519) Homepage
        The James Webb space telescope, if it is not cancelled, was intended to augment Hubble, not replace it. They detect two different things, the Webb for mostly infrared, and the Hubble for mostly short wavelengths, visible to humans. Also, it is very hard to get even a little time on the Hubble. Having both would allow for twice the exploration. The current 6 year gap between Hubble going out of service and Webb operating is not the issue at all.

        And you are massively overblowing the risks involved. First of all, we have 3 space shuttles, Atlantis, Endeavour, and Discovery. How do we risk one and a half space shuttles? The only thing that makes it 'riskier' than going to the ISS, is that you can't go from Hubble to the ISS. This is not exactly a suicide mission. And I bet the astronauts would be more than willing to go.

        It would only cost 500 million to service the Hubble. Allowing the Hubble to burn up in the atmosphere would waste the billions that we've already invested in it.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re:Good Promo for Hubble (Score:5, Interesting)

            by dafoomie ( 521507 ) <dafoomie@@@hotmail...com> on Monday February 16, 2004 @06:31AM (#8292576) Homepage
            Discovery is being overhauled, is it not? "Overhauled" as in, virtually permantely overhauled, right?

            Discovery is fine. It was scheduled for a mission in summer 2003 before the Columbia accident.

            You are vastly overblowing the risk of a mission to the Hubble. We have had 113 shuttle missions since 1981. We have lost two. Both could have been prevented and should not have happened. NASA is more safety concious than ever now and will not allow a similar situation to happen again. This is not safety issue. It's a money issue. They don't want to spend the money. If they don't want to spend the money on this, what makes you think they'll spend more money on the Webb telescope?

            • Safety (Score:2, Insightful)

              by ericlp ( 749865 )
              Yeah it is a safety issue. Sloppy attitude is a big part of flight safety. This includes the sustainment management of the craft. The idiots at NASA learned nothing from the first shuttle disaster, except how to act suprised at the revelation of their poor program management Nothing that firing some of the lead management couldn't fix to set a firm example.
            • They said the same thing after Challenger.

              Lie to me once, shame on you. Lie to me twice, shame on me...

        • Re:Good Promo for Hubble (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          The James Webb space telescope, if it is not cancelled, was intended to augment Hubble, not replace it. They detect two different things, the Webb for mostly infrared, and the Hubble for mostly short wavelengths, visible to humans.

          That's very true.

          But if you want to look very far back in the universe (as was done in this case), then what you need is a good infrared camera.

          So this particular observation is not actually a good example of why it would be useful for the Hubble to stick around. Although t

      • Risk (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jmichaelg ( 148257 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @08:39AM (#8293066) Journal
        Why risk 50% of our remaining space shuttle fleet, another human crew, and untold billions to repair Hubble at this point?

        You're right, there's risk involved. The question is which projects do you decide to spend the remaining shuttle flights on? Do you continue to pour money down an ISS rat hole that has delivered ZERO peer-reviewed science, has no reason to exist other than pork barrel or do you allocate the flights to maximizing the remaining science?

        NASA has already killed Compton, is on its way to killing Hubble and you think O'Keefe and gang will fund Webb? Perhaps you didn't notice, Webb has already been scaled back twice - the ISS money vacuum will continue to wreak its damage. Other posters have already pointed out that Webb and Hubble are not interchangeable - they see different spectrums.The problem is is that NASA will continue to lose public support if its only reason to exist is to fly the Shuttle back and forth between ISS. The ISS has no value other than job creation. Hubble on the other hand, provides both jobs and real science - the kind of science that gets published in Science and Nature. ISS science is the kind of science you find at the local county science fair, i.e., "What color does my dog like?"

        Your post and O'Keefe's decision to kill Hubble clearly illustrate how poorly educated this country is. Equating Hubble and Webb and choosing ISS over Hubble are examples of what happens when half our children aren't taught science well enough to know that it takes a year for the earth to circle the sun. The cost of that poor education is you get people like O'Keefe running Nasa and the public doesn't know enough to say boo about it. We've lost the super collider, we're going to lose Hubble, 50/50 Webb will not fly, manufacturing, accounting, customer service and software have been outsourced but we'll have a worthless missile "defense" and plenty of boobies on fark.com. That's the cost of poorly educating people.

    • It is certainly another excellent result for Hubble. But even for results like this, is it really worth $700 million to service Hubble(the cost of a shuttle flight and new instrumentation)? That is a fantastically large number. Now that the Bush administration has given NASA clear goals I hope they stick to them and resist the pressure to service Hubble. The James Webb telescope is coming.

  • Oh Joy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Omikr0n ( 656115 ) * on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:12AM (#8292363)
    Yay! Even more reasons to keep this guy around! It's a damn shame they want to deorbit Hubble. With this much invested into a telescope that STILL continues to function fine, why not just open it up for other uses rather than deorbit it?

    • Re:Oh Joy (Score:5, Informative)

      by AlecC ( 512609 ) <aleccawley@gmail.com> on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:24AM (#8292395)
      Hubble will stop working if it is not serviced. It is not a question of lack of users, it is things like propellant to aim it, replacement gyros for the ones wearing out spinning up there, and so on. Hubble asn't designed to work for ever - it was designed for regular service calls. So many of the bits have finite lives, and will reach the end of those lives in anothr couple of years.

      I too vote for a service call. But as I understand it, NASA is not doing it on safety rather than money grounds. New safety rules say that the shuttle needs an external inspection before re-entry to avoud the problems last time. At ISS, that is is easy - look through the windows. And if a fault is found, you can wait at ISS while spares come up by rocket or another shuttle. At Hubble, you would have to do a dangerous EVA to check it. And you would have nowhere to wait for spares if you found damage that could not be repaired with on-board resources (Shuttle's endurance is about 10 days).

      • Re: EVA (Score:5, Interesting)

        by neodymium ( 411811 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @06:58AM (#8292632) Homepage
        Don't the astronauts have to do EVA anyway while doing the Hubble service ? I mean, they should be able to spare 10mins for checking the shuttle... No reason for a second EVA.
      • New safety rules say that the shuttle needs an external inspection before re-entry to avoud the problems last time. At ISS, that is is easy - look through the windows. And if a fault is found, you can wait at ISS while spares come up by rocket or another shuttle. At Hubble, you would have to do a dangerous EVA to check it.

        That pretty much eliminates everything but ISS missions--which, from what I understand, is exactly what has happened.

        The upshot is, I have no idea where NASA is going to find the money

  • Shuttle repair mission... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by case_igl ( 103589 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:12AM (#8292364) Homepage
    I can't recall how many hundreds of times I have seen Hubble in the headlines over the last few years. The waiting list for Hubble time is insane, and the science has been among the best that NASA has ever done.

    It's amazing to me that this "it's too risky" reasoning for the cancellation of the repair missions to Hubble is still being floated.

    It's franky disappointing to me as American that we are such a nation of wimps now. I personally think it's more of a risk to send people to the space station in regards to the scientific return.

    While I have seen hundreds of "discovered by Hubble this week" I have not seen one discovery in the news come from the station. It's usually fighting with the Russians or announcing it's going to cost ten times more than we thought to do one twentieth the science.

    Yes, I am off-topic. But I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!

    • Re:Shuttle repair mission... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ubi_NL ( 313657 ) <joris.benschop@NOspam.gmail.com> on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:27AM (#8292409) Journal
      While I have seen hundreds of "discovered by Hubble this week" I have not seen one discovery in the news come from the station. It's usually fighting with the Russians or announcing it's going to cost ten times more than we thought to do one twentieth the science.

      I'm sorry but this is just nonsense.
      I am personally involved with some experiments conducted in ISS, and I know there is a lot of important research going on there.

      Just because ISS does not have a PR department that hypes up every other little discovery as is happening for hubble, and because it doesn't give you pretty pictures but complex scientific output, you have no argument for saying there is no research going on in that place

      • Re:Shuttle repair mission... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Drakin ( 415182 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:33AM (#8292423)
        Why doesn't the ISS have a PR department, or at least some form of publicity for the research that's going on.

        Well, other than the fact that a lot of scientists are getting their shit in knots over the idea that someone may steal thier research data and put it to a practical use before they can.

        You want to keep the public's eye on the benitits of the station, rather than the cost, or the latest stupid problem.

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:38AM (#8292438)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re:Shuttle repair mission... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Drakin ( 415182 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:54AM (#8292467)
            Yeah, but who considers most of the representatives informed?

            It's not for the preresentatives that the PR is needed, it's for the public. it's easy for them to dismiss the ISS, because they know very little of what is being done up there. And the public, should have some weight with thier representative... at least if the representative wants to sit in his comfy chair past next time the election rolls around.
            • I'd rather have they spend their money on the science than on some dorky animation like NASA tends to do for its mars expeditions. It is ridiculous to demand that the government jumps through hoops to keep you informed what's going on in ISS just because you are too lazy to look it up yourself.
              • It doesn't need to be a dorky animation like the mars mission. Heck, more good press has been gained from the actual images that the rovers have sent back than the silly animations. The public I think is tired of those already.

                Something as simple as NASA's "Image of the Day" can bring a lot of attention to the project, as it gets picked up by the media if the subject matter is deamed "of interest". Thier little blurbs about what's bening seen are much easier for the public to read and understand.

                in cont

          • Let me put it this way:

            the Hubble PR department publishes in the 'West Hawaii today' and 'Mercury News'. ISS results are generally published in peer reviewed journals like 'Cell' and 'Nature'. I suggest you base your conclusions after doing a bit more research.

            The fact that you only consider newspapers and TV a valid source of information is rather disturbing.

            • Re:Shuttle repair mission... (Score:5, Insightful)

              by RayBender ( 525745 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @08:31AM (#8293031) Homepage
              the Hubble PR department publishes in the 'West Hawaii today' and 'Mercury News'. ISS results are generally published in peer reviewed journals like 'Cell' and 'Nature'.

              Bullshit. HST is among the most productive astronomical facilities ever, measured in publication and citation count ( analysed here [arxiv.org]). HST data is typically used in more than 150 peer-reviewed papers a year. These are papers in journals such as Astrophysical Journal [uchicago.edu], Science [sciencemag.org], and of course Nature. A simple seach of the Science archives show 68 original research publications with "Hubble Space Telescope" in the text since 1995. A similar search for "International Space Station" returns ZERO hits. A search of the Nature website returns an interesting article: " Biologists recommend scrapping NASA's research on crystals" (Nature394, 213 (16 Jul 1998)) that starts out: "A panel of US biologists has called for an end to protein crystallography experiments in space -- one of the highest-profile research activities..."

              The fact that the general public is fairly deluged by pretty HST pictures is in addition to the fact that the astronomical community is using HST very actively; it's not an artefact of some PR department.

              Don't get me wrong - I think manned spaceflight, and the space station are good things, and should be funded. But let's be honest here; HST blows ISS out of space when it comes to publications and scientific impact.

        • Re:Shuttle repair mission... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @08:50AM (#8293127) Homepage
          you know what... as a scientist you became one to further the human condition and advance science..

          not to discover,patent and get farking rich.

          money grubbing in science has always pissed me off and these people are NOT scientists that do this, they are privateers with an education... nothing more.

          Hubble is about science that benefits EVERYONE on this planet, not about making one person rich, or one company more profitable.
      • I am personally involved with some experiments conducted in ISS, and I know there is a lot of important research going on there.

        Please, can you list it? I'm honestly very curious as to what is being done on the station; there is not much reported in the litterature that I can find, so I'd like to hear first-hand...

      • You know, it's funny, but when I worked at NASA, all the scientists I knew (who worked on neither Hubble nor ISS), thought Hubble produced good science and ISS was a waste of time. All the physicists I know at my University seem to think the same. Take it for what you will.

  • Someone tell me again... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ShadowBlasko ( 597519 ) <shadowblasko.gmail@com> on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:15AM (#8292372)
    WHY are we just letting the Hubble die again?

    Oh yeah, thats right, NASA says that it costs too much to maintain, and it's getting close to its estimated end of life date.

    Guess we better junk it because it seems we aren't getting any good science out of it. Whats that? oldest known galaxy huh? Cool! .. lets study it to learn more about the origins of the galaxy! Oh, we can't lease any more time on the Hubble because we're junking it remember?.

    Once again, I think NASA really needs to learn a very old saying that you don't junk something until you have a replacement. When the JWT is operational and snug in its lagrange point, then we can talk about whether or not to scrap the Hubble. Until then, I think its worth perhaps *outsourcing* a maintinence mission to another country (or private company) who thinks they can get the job done.

    Who says we *have* to use the shuttle? Or is there something I am missing about the shuttle being the only craft that can work on the Hubble?

    Then again, I can't think of anyone else that can get there at the moment either. And if they can, I suppose they would probably be more apt to put their own agenda's ahead of a NASA maintinence mission.

    Oh well.

    • Re:Someone tell me again... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Kierthos ( 225954 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:21AM (#8292387) Homepage
      Not just that... it's because Bush wants to put a man on Mars, and NASA only has so much money, so something has to get cut.

      Now I'm wishing I hadn't sent that e-mail about there being oil on Mars...

      Kierthos
    • RTFA's

      NASA said NOTHING about the costs... They said it is TOO risky to fix it. Also, they never said there wasn't good science coming from it.

      And what are you talking about other crafts? The space shuttles are the main crafts that go to speace.

      nasa shuttles [nasa.gov]
      wired article [wired.com] that tells about hubble and reasons its not being fixed.
      • Astronauts are supposed to risk their lives. That's their job. Just like soldiers or policemen. Anyway, how is sending someone to Mars going to be safer than a quick jaunt to the Hubble to fix some things.

        O'Keefe is simply not being candid about his real goals, which is to garner votes for his boss anyway he can.

        Your average Joe/Jane can't remember what the Hubble was, but might just recall that Bush wanted to do something cool like send heros to Mars.
    • Guess we better junk it because it seems we aren't getting any good science out of it. Whats that? oldest known galaxy huh? Cool! .. lets study it to learn more about the origins of the galaxy!

      No, that's the job of the James Webb Telescope :-)
      http://www.ngst.nasa.gov/FastFacts.htm [nasa.gov]

  • And still no sign of Luke or the Empire. (Score:5, Funny)

    by evn ( 686927 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:17AM (#8292378)
    It takes light a whole lot of years to make it this far. It sounds like this story should have started with: "A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away..."
  • Only the BBC site had pictures. And a small one at that, that did not expand in opera.. with my settings.

    Anyone have some really nice new picture links they are talking about?

  • Well... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Neko-kun ( 750955 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:22AM (#8292389) Journal
    if NASA is only bitching about not being able to finance the repairs, then why not lease it to another country? With some "creative legalties" we can have the leasing country fix it for us and return it good as new... But how many countries'll fall fall for that one?..
  • I'm sure the guys in Maryland will probably be coming up with daily or weekly ASTOUNDING DISCOVERIES! in order to keep funding at Johns Hopkins.

    What can they do to gather funding from other than government sources? What other countries would like to help?

    At one time I expected this telescope to the the most incredible scientific instrument ever built. But my enthusiasm for it was damaged when they neglected to test it before launch. Did the telescope project accept the responsibility for the failure,

    • Re:Probably the first of many upcoming PR items (Score:4, Insightful)

      by wass ( 72082 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:41AM (#8294041)
      But my enthusiasm for it was damaged when they neglected to test it before launch.

      You do realize, though, that the Hubble had the most accurate optics of any telescope ever built? (It was at the time, though since then Chandra probably exceeds it). That's why they were able to correct the spherical aberation perfectly with COSTAR.

      Anyway, IIRC, it was the testing equipment that led to the problem with the spherical aberration. Ie, they ground the mirror to a very high standard. They fine-tuned the curvature with testing equipment to get it to the proper shape (talking 10's of nanometers of material to grind away here, not much material at all). It was this testing equipment that was miscalibrated. But it was a systematic error, so they could perfectly undo the aberrations introduced into the mirror.

      As far as testing it before launch, I beliebe there were some problems that it couldn't be tested until it was in a microgravity environment. For example, the weight of the mirror in a gravitational field distorts it significantly that it can't actually focus.

  • Is Hubble your love toy? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AmVidia HQ ( 572086 ) <gfung@[ ]com ['me.' in gap]> on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:29AM (#8292414) Homepage
    I understand the stupidity of de-orbiting Hubble, and I do think NASA should extend its life a little longer by doing the service mission. But don't you think all the sentimental slashdot comments is a little too sentimental? Just maybe Hubble is getting old, and it's time to put up a new telescope for replacement (hopefully or eventually)?

    • ust maybe Hubble is getting old, and it's time to put up a new telescope for replacement (hopefully or eventually)?

      Well, then how about putting up the new telescope and then discarding Hubble? Otherwise you easily end up in a situation like Germany with the current truck toll nonsense, i.e. with nothing but trouble.

      Besides: Just because things get old doesn't necessarily mean they get useless. Always remember: Any Saturn V beats the crap out of any modern rocket in terms of thrust (maybe the Energija

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Is Hubble your love toy? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Angstroem ( 692547 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @06:20AM (#8292532)
          Would you risk your life to fix the Hubble knowing that (a) your mission may not succeed, (b) you might blow up at any time, (c) a replacement will be ready around 2007, and (d) that if you die during mission, it may be the end of manned space flight for generations to come?
          You never know whether space missions succeed or if you're gonna blow up. Nobody expected the shuttle explosions in 1986 and 2003. With your arguments (b) and (d), you better do not risk any manned trip to space ever. The replacement in 2007 might be ready or not. The German toll collect system was announced to be fully operating in Q3/2003. Now they tell something about maybe a small-scale version end of 2004 and the full thing a year later. The replacement might even be ready in 2007 and then the carrier rocket blows up or needs to be destructed. The replacement might even make it up into space and then they'll find out that someone again fucked up the mirrors. Or a solar panel won't open. Or just some piece of junk shreds the whole thing.

          Or, the whole project gets canned because the money is rerouted into other projects.

          So why again do you think the replacement will be ready around 2007?

          Concerning (d): Other nations are also possible to send people into space and even bring them back. And, be sure, they will happily fill the gap, if the US decide to "end manned space flights for generations".

        • Ok, first off, I think you're just trolling here, since every [slashdot.org] comment [slashdot.org] you [slashdot.org] make [slashdot.org] is the same thing, over and over again, despite having been corrected on your facts time and time again. But I'll bite anyways. Would you risk your life driving to the store knowing that (a) they may be out of Diet Pepsi, (b) you might get hit by a car in the parking lot, (c) you have groceries in the house now, and (d) that if you get struck by lightning, your friends and family may be scarred for life and unable to go grocer
      • Why is the Hubble being scrapped when we don't have anything that can currently replace it?

        Politics. Dirty, stinking, no forward looking, get the powers that be to look away from what matters and focus on voting the encumbents in this November, politics.

        Am I pissed? Yeah. Am I biased, maybe. Am I right? Definatly.
    • Even if Hubble is replaced by a newer and better telescope, the demand for time on the instrument is so great that both telescopes can still be put to very good use. Even as the second best telescope, Hubble's usefulness far outweighs the cost to do the service mission.

      Regardless, we should not even be thinking of scrapping Hubble until something better is up there.

      Jason
      ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
      • As I understand it, in the visible wavelengths we have something better down here. New telescopes with actively controlled lenses are claimed to be achieving as good results as Hubble, with all the advantages of ground basing and at a fraction of the cost.

        It is in the infra-red, which cannot get through the atmosphere (well, some near-infra-red can) where you need space based telescopes. And while Hubble can do infra-red work, I don't think it is optimised for it. Which is why the Webb telescope will be an

  • Much better picture. (Score:5, Informative)

    by pointzero ( 707900 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:31AM (#8292418) Homepage
    If you want to see this thing up close, here's a better link. click me [umich.edu]

  • That's impossible... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:32AM (#8292421)

    ...there's no mention of this at Dr. Dino [drdino.com], clearly this is a clever hoax... It's impossible anyhow since we all know the earth (and therefore the universe) is only 6000 years old [evowiki.org]!

    (humor folks, humor)

  • How many shuttles? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:42AM (#8292446)
    As I understand it they cannot service hubble because of the danger to astronauts if the shuttle tiles were damaged (unlike the ISS, there is nowhere for the astronauts to "shelter").

    How many shuttles are left? If there were two, perhaps one could go to the ISS on a supply mission, and following a test to check the tiles are OK a second could be launched to the Hubble. If the hubble shuttle had problems the ISS shuttle could go to the rescue?

    Is this all skyborn 3.14? Yep, I'm sure NASA have analysed all these possibilities, but after wasting so many resources on ridiculous exercises it would be a pity if NASA abandoned the one thing that does a day to day useful job out in space!

    • How is this insightful? If the Hubble maintenance mission is too dangerous because the Shuttle can't reach the ISS from Hubble's orbit, then how could it work the other way around?

      Maybe there is a solution, but then that might just as well be applied to the original Hubble mission, so that the Shuttle could reach the ISS.

      NASA has also stated that for doing two simultaneous missions (or one on standby on the launchpad) they would need two mission control centers as well. I have no idea if that's true or no

  • Old news! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:49AM (#8292457)
    In fact over 13 bilion years old...

  • Less than 10% more distance to see nothing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gringer ( 252588 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:50AM (#8292460)
    So, we can apparently see [the light from] something 13 billion light years away, and find something 750 million years old, meaning we can see about 95% of the life of the universe.

    How long will it be before we can get to the point where the whole universe was invisible?

  • Is that galaxy... (Score:3, Funny)

    by RyuuzakiTetsuya ( 195424 ) <.taiki. .at. .cox.net.> on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:53AM (#8292464)
    Wondering why we haven't called home? :(

  • Off topic content... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by fatgeekuk ( 730791 )
    Well, it isn't off topic, but It feels that way with all the content about the decommissioning of hubble...

    A simple question (note, I have only superficial understanding of astronomy so this is probably a very stupid question.)

    This picture/set of pictures shows a galaxy as it was less than a billion years after the bb.

    How long does a galaxy take to form?
    How long does a galaxy take to rotate (I have not seen the pictures, so do not know if it is a spiral galaxy or not)

    Does a galaxy take longer to form (t

    • Re:Off topic content... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by AlecC ( 512609 )
      Our galaxy takes 200m-300m years to rotate. Current theories, I think, suggest that they take much the same time to form. But I think that is the sort of question this kind of observation is trying to answer. It may be part of the answer - if galaxies take longer to form than the apparent age of the universe when this one wes formed (which I don't think was the case), somebody's theories need changing. If not, it is another pebble of evidence on the side of current theories.
    • While a couple of hundred million years is a reasonable timescale for a galaxy like the Milky Way, it is important to realize that galaxies typically rotate differentially and in the case of ellipticals without a single well defined rotation axis. Spiral galaxies like the Milky Way have "flat" rotation curves such that the velocities are constant no matter the radial distance, so it takes stars at larger radial distances much longer to orbit around than stars closer in. Individual stars in sprial galaxies
  • Just how strong can these gravitational lenses be? Caustics would sem to create a potential for extremely high light intensification. I wonder if any exterrestrial civilizations have been accidentally killed by a gravitational lensing event. Fortunately, I suspect that this is extremely unlikely because of the distances involved (a thousand-fold amplification of a galaxy a billion light year s away is no big deal).

    Still, I do wonder if an unfortunate alignment of a supernova, blackhole, and an unsus

  • Ping? (Score:5, Funny)

    by LynXmaN ( 4317 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @07:01AM (#8292639) Homepage
    Ping times for that galaxy must be terrible!

    • Re:Ping? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Pflipp ( 130638 )


      The problem is, when you have your reply back, you have no guarantee whatsoever that the galaxy is still up. Who is telling you that it hasn't exploded a million years ago?

  • Shuttling around (Score:5, Insightful)

    by maroberts ( 15852 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @07:28AM (#8292704) Homepage Journal
    I'm coming increasingly to believe the space station is a bit of a dead duck and the issues that prevented the location of ISS in a higher orbit should have been addressed, so that it could do something really useful - like being a base where servicing missions can start and end from.

    Then one would deliver a true shuttle which would flit between ISS and whatever hardware needed upgrading. Fuel and personel would be delivered to the space station alone as a starting and ending point.

  • This was actually done mostly by the Hawai Keck (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pjacobi ( 526409 ) <peter_jacobi@gmx.net> on Monday February 16, 2004 @07:38AM (#8292732)
    From BBC:
    "The Hubble data suggested a redshift of 6.6, but follow-up observations with the 10-metre Keck telescopes on Hawaii indicated the new object probably has a redshift closer to 7.0 - a record."
    You see, this work can be done from orbit or from earth. There are perfectly valid arguments for keeping Hubble, and even more valid arguments for space telescopes in general, but this particular observation isn't decisive.

    • Re:This was actually done mostly by the Hawai Keck (Score:5, Informative)

      by AlecC ( 512609 ) <aleccawley@gmail.com> on Monday February 16, 2004 @08:15AM (#8292950)
      I would guess this is a tradeoff between resolving power and light gathering capacity. The high resolution of the Hubble was needed to observe that the two apparent galaxies were identical and therefore the same galaxy lensed by the intevening cluster. This needs the high resolution of Hubble, unaffected by the atmosphere. But with its relatively small mirror, Hubble cannot gather enougb photons for a good esposure. So you point Keck, with its 10 metre mirror, at the blur which it cannot resolve - and probably give it a longer exposure than you can get time for on the overbooked Hubble. And you get a much better spectrum. But it was Hubble which made the discovery, whaich arguably could not have been made from beneath the atmosphere.

      • Re:This was actually done mostly by the Hawai Keck (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Uncertain Bohr ( 122949 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @09:41AM (#8293499)
        Keck was used for high res spectroscopy. It takes hours to get a single spectrum of something this dim. You could find these efficiently using Keck in a survey mode. Keck and HST complement one another quite while (as does the VLT and Gemini). JWST was meant to work wel with HST/Keck too by allowing yet another wavelength range to be examined at very loew sensitivities.
        The mistake made by some politicians and non-scientists is that they think that there must be a "best telescope" one can build to do ALL science. This is wrong.

  • Why don't we have a proper international... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CrackedButter ( 646746 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @07:42AM (#8292749) Homepage Journal
    space agency? If all the major nations combined their efforts rather than having a fragmented approach then surely things would get done and benefit everyone. Also it would create debate as opposed to politicains declaring equipment repairs unsafe and EOL them without a good analysis of whats going on.

  • The memories... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cryp2Nite ( 67224 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @07:47AM (#8292774)
    What I wouldn't give to be just 750 million years old again...
    Life, the universe and everything seemed so simple back then.

  • Voyeurs! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 16, 2004 @08:57AM (#8293171)
    "Astronomers use gravitational lensing, a magnifying effect caused by the gravity / mass of galaxies, to capture images of the farthest / oldest galaxy known - from when the universe was just 750 million years old. Stories from the BBC, Sign On San Diego, West Hawaii Today, or Mercury News."

    So in other words, these astronomers are a bunch of voyeurs peeking at young starlets through big lenses. This is appaling! Young galaxies shouldn't be exploited in this manner, especially at such a fragile time in their existence, when they are just beginning to discover themselves. The galaxies scientists are viewing keep getting younger and younger as they attempt to reach the elusive "Big Bang". To make things worse, they shameless post pictures of their exploits on the Internet.
  • The newly discovered galaxy is likely to be a young galaxy shining during the end of the so - called "Dark Ages" - the period in cosmic history which ended with the first galaxies and quasars transforming opaque, molecular hydrogen into the transparent, ionized universe we see today.

    ionized = transparent? i thought it was the other way around: neutral atomic hydrogen is transparent, ionized charged plasma is opaque. am i confused, or is it the article?


  • Hubble Snaps Farthest / Oldest Galaxy

    I guess NASA is going to have to send a probe to glue that galaxy back together now, huh?

  • a big if, a bigger and, and an enormous but (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @10:14AM (#8293787)
    IF we had a permanent base on the moon AND a lunar-based telescope, we'd have exposures of up to two weeks long!

    BUT if Bush's plan is only a political game to win votes in Florida and Texas, we might as well try to make NASA change its mind on Hubble.

  • Wow, primal galaxies formed FAST!!! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Thorstein ( 588271 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @11:14AM (#8294400)
    Only 750 million years after the big bang, this primal galaxy formed!!! That is amazingly quick. Our galaxy is purported to have taken a lot longer for it to form. The implications are immense.

  • Most Recent Articles (Score:4, Informative)

    by starannihilator ( 752908 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @11:15AM (#8294412) Journal
    Thanks to all those who provided updates since I posted this, when the news broke. I thought I'd add a few more: The news from Hubblesite [hubblesite.org], The Discovery Channel [discovery.com], Yahoo News [yahoo.com], and from Innovations Report [innovations-report.com]

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