New images from the recently refurbished Hubble Space Telescope show that the 19-year-old observatory is now more powerful than ever.
WOW. Simply astounding pictures–look at them all and read it all.
Souped-Up Hubble Makes A Comeback
Posted in * Culture-Watch, Science & Technology
They’re great pictures, but I doubt any of them are really new or noticeably better to our eyes. I have a 2006 Hubble calendar which has equally nice pictures and in particular shows that gravitational lensing effect just as nicely.
I think the photos are just more PR for NASA.
Since we personally know one the astronauts who helped repair the telescope, no, this is not just “a more PR†for NASA. NASA did not want to repair the telescope a fifth time, but given the amount of data that Hubble collects that cannot be accomplished with atmospheric based telescopes, astronomers around the world wanted to keep the Hubble going.
A friend of mine is an astronomer at JPL. He claims that it would be substantially cheaper to build a brand-new Hubble every few years and launch it on a disposable rocket, than it is to constantly send up shuttle missions to repair the old one.
“PR for NASA” or not, these photos are fantastic!
Too bad they can’t figure out a way to put Hubble in orbit around or on the Moon or attached to the space station for longer use.