Nasa releases 59 new hubble images

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Postby tubby » Wed Sep 09, 2009 10:47 pm

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is back in action after its most recent upgrade, with a spectacular array of new images showing off the telescope's new capabilities.

The first images — a closely guarded secret until today — were of galaxy NGC 6217. The picture was taken with NASA's newly refurbished Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).

This is "the day many of us have all been waiting for to celebrate Hubble's new beginning," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Hubble also snapped pictures of a densely packed star cluster, an eerie "pillar of creation," and a "butterfly" nebula.

Scientists also released spectroscopic observations that slice across billions of light-years to probe the cosmic-web structure of the universe and map the distribution of elements that are fundamental to life as we know it.

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., who has provided key support for Hubble and NASA in Congress, unveiled the images at NASA Headquarters. She was given the honorary title "Godmother of Hubble."

"I fought for the Hubble repair mission because Hubble is the people's telescope," said Mikulski, chairwoman of the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittee that funds NASA.

Hubble's new instruments, including the Wide Field Camera 3 a new super-sensitive spectrograph, were installed on the 19-year-old telescope by shuttle astronauts during a 13-day service mission in May. The mission also revived two instruments — Hubble's main ACS and a versatile imaging spectrograph — that were never designed to be fixed in space.

The new instruments are more sensitive to light and, therefore, will improve Hubble's observing efficiency significantly. It is able to complete observations in a fraction of the time that was needed with prior generations of Hubble instruments.

The WFC3 was actually used to take a picture of Jupiter's new black spot — thought to have been caused by a comet collision — back in July, but the camera wasn't yet fully calibrated then.

Despite a few bumps in the three-month checkout, Hubble's systems and instruments are all up and running now.

NASA's new administrator Charlie Bolden was also on hand to congratulate the scientists and astronauts on Hubble's new lease on life. Bolden was one of the astronauts on the shuttle mission that deployed Hubble in 1990.

"Hubble has a special place in my heart," Bolden said. Through Hubble's past and future observations, "our view of the universe and our place within it will never be the same," he added.

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Amazing stuff these pics. I could look at them all day. I read one of them is so far away we are literally looking back into time to around the time the universe was thought to have formed. You can download the full sized versions on the NASA site.
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Postby Emerald Red » Wed Sep 09, 2009 11:24 pm

Staggering, isn't it? The scope and scale of everything, and puts into perspective our place in all of it. Looking at things like that should open anyone's mind to what's possible. And when you think about it, what we see in those pictures is not what is taking place right here and now, but millions, if not billions, of years in the past. We're looking into the past.
Last edited by Emerald Red on Wed Sep 09, 2009 11:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Madmax » Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:06 am

awesome pics..
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Postby red37 » Thu Sep 10, 2009 4:02 am

Stunning.

That last one is simply beautiful...hypnotic even.
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Postby Sabre » Thu Sep 10, 2009 9:07 am

Emerald Red wrote:Staggering, isn't it? The scope and scale of everything, and puts into perspective our place in all of it. Looking at things like that should open anyone's mind to what's possible. And when you think about it, what we see in those pictures is not what is taking place right here and now, but millions, if not billions, of years in the past. We're looking into the past.

Yep.

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Just when you think that there are many starts to count in your galaxy, and then you learn that everything we're watching in this photos are other galaxies (with their stars), and then you only realise that the galaxies you can watch from a visual telescope like Hubble are only a small portion you can laugh.

And both in this galaxy and the other one the same physical laws.
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Postby andy_g » Thu Sep 10, 2009 9:25 am

yep, makes it hard to believe that out of all the suns in all those galaxies there's not at least one other rocky little ball on which live a couple of hundred semi-intelligent fleshy lumps who get together on a fairly regular basis to chat football and bullshit and fall out over trivialities via some complex interconnected but anonymous information system.
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Postby Sabre » Thu Sep 10, 2009 9:58 am

We don't only need rocky planets, we also need 1G gravitation. It's the problem of football.
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Postby Bad Bob » Thu Sep 10, 2009 10:56 am

andy_g wrote:yep, makes it hard to believe that out of all the suns in all those galaxies there's not at least one other rocky little ball on which live a couple of hundred semi-intelligent fleshy lumps who get together on a fairly regular basis to chat football and bullshit and fall out over trivialities via some complex interconnected but anonymous information system.

:nod

A few of them deffo post on here as well.  :alien:
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Postby bunglemark2 » Thu Sep 10, 2009 11:30 am

That last one looks just like a pavement pizza I left behind me in town the other night :D
http://s2.tinypic.com/30ldif7_th.jpg
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Postby Woollyback » Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:35 pm

cracking pics, it's when i see pics like that that my brain seizes up trying to get my head round the magnitude of all that's out there, and how tiny and insignificant earth is in the grand scheme of things
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Postby Greavesie » Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:40 pm

great pics, got anymore?

really makes you realise how tiny we are, stunning stuff
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Postby dawson99 » Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:43 pm

I think they're sh!t
bunch of stars and stuff... wowzers :D
0118 999 881 999 119 7253
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Postby Judge » Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:59 pm

outstanding
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Postby LFC2007 » Thu Sep 10, 2009 3:25 pm

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Top one. Alien right there. Nose, eyes, ears, chin, grin, large pointy head, looking up.
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Postby bunglemark2 » Thu Sep 10, 2009 3:39 pm

Nah, it looks more like a giant Mr. "Space" Whippy........a cosmic turd of unfathomable size !!
http://s2.tinypic.com/30ldif7_th.jpg
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