Hubble Photographs Jupiter's New "Scar" 60
BearRanger writes "Calibration of new systems in the Hubble Space Telescope (installed in May by Shuttle Atlantis astronauts) were interrupted to take pictures of the new 'scar' near the south pole of Jupiter. The scar is believed to have been caused by the impact of an asteroid or small comet with the gas giant, which we discussed last Sunday. Hubble's return to service will be delayed by this interruption, but NASA says that rare events such as this warrant the delay. This is only the second recorded impact of an object with Jupiter."
Re:Hubble seems really upgraded (Score:1, Insightful)
This is nothing compared to the shots from the Galileo spacecraft. We would be getting awesome shots of this impact if NASA hadn't suicided the probe in 2003.
Re:Hubble seems really upgraded (Score:4, Insightful)
Have they detailed the calibration milestones?
Re:Still justifying its existence (Score:5, Insightful)
The resolution of the full size image of Hubble is incredible.
I have always been a fan of the Hubble site and still remain today.
I was heart broken, as well as many others, a few years back when bush wanted to scrap Hubble.
I hope we learned from that near mistake and keep the thing going for years to come.
It will only continue to provide new discoveries with each passing year.
A very valuable asset to science.
"Wide field" is a relative term... (Score:3, Insightful)
The "wide field" (low-magnification) camera on Hubble gives a much narrower field and higher magnification than a sizable (10") amateur scope at its highest power.
Hubble really, really rocks.
Re:Size (Score:3, Insightful)
Now there's a reason to keep watch on asteroids, and to start coming up with ways of deflecting them, if there ever was one.
If something like that hits our planet, things are going to be very unpleasant.
Re:Hubble seems really upgraded (Score:2, Insightful)
I think that it's not just the image quality that's interesting. As a non-astro-anything-ist, I tend to think of space exploration as a really slow process, requiring years and years of bureaucratic approvals, budget overruns, then waiting months or years for the thing to get where it's going.
For Hubble to simply stop everything to swing a look at Jupiter so soon after something newsworthy happens there is a reminder that the Hubble Space Telescope is really.fucking.cool.
- RG>