1.
STS-125
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STS-125, or HST-SM4, was the fifth and final space shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. The launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis occurred on 11 May 2009 at 2,01 pm EDT, landing occurred on 24 May at 11,39 am EDT, with the mission lasting a total of just under 13 days. Space Shuttle Atlantis carried two new instruments to the Hubble Space Telescope, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Wide Field Camera 3. The mission also replaced a Fine Guidance Sensor, six gyroscopes, the mission also carried an IMAX camera with which the crew documented the progress of the mission for the Hubble IMAX movie. The crew of STS-125 included three astronauts who had previous experience servicing Hubble, scott Altman visited Hubble in 2002 as commander of STS-109, the fourth Hubble servicing mission. John Grunsfeld, an astronomer, has serviced Hubble twice, performing a total of five spacewalks on STS-103 in 1999, Michael Massimino served with both Altman and Grunsfeld on STS-109, and performed two spacewalks to service the telescope. NASA managers and engineers declared the mission a complete success, the upgrades will help Hubble to see deeper into the universe and farther into the past, closer to the time of the Big Bang. STS-125 was the visit to the Hubble Space Telescope for Atlantis. The mission was the 30th flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis and also the first by Atlantis in over 14 years not to visit a space station, the fifth servicing mission to Hubble, HST-SM4, was originally scheduled to launch in late 2005 or early 2006. On 16 January 2004, then-NASA Administrator Sean OKeefe canceled the mission, as well as any future missions to Hubble, during the announcement, OKeefe stated that it was his decision alone, and not a recommendation from any other departments. The decision was criticized by the media, the science community. In March 2004, Representative Mark Udall introduced a bill to the House of Representatives that requested an independent panel of experts review OKeefes decision to cancel the servicing mission. With Beckwith when he released the data to the community was Mikulski. This is why I will continue to stand up for Hubble, joining Mikulski as an advocate for servicing Hubble was NASAs Chief Scientist, physicist John Grunsfeld, who was present at the meeting when OKeefe announced the cancellation of the mission. A veteran astronaut of four missions, including two Hubble servicing missions, Grunsfeld had devoted years to Hubble, and was very disappointed when OKeefe canceled the mission. He briefly considered retiring from NASA, but realized if he stayed, instead, Grunsfeld dedicated himself to finding alternate ways to service the telescope, possibly by sending a robot into orbit to do the job. OKeefes replacement, Michael D. Griffin, took just two months after his appointment to announce that he disagreed with OKeefes decision, and would consider sending a shuttle to repair Hubble. As an engineer, Griffin had previously worked on Hubbles construction, on 31 October 2006, Griffin announced that the Hubble servicing mission was reinstated, scheduled for 2008, and announced the crew that would fly the mission, which included Grunsfeld
2.
Hubble Space Telescope
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The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. Although not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, with a 2. 4-meter mirror, Hubbles four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectra. Hubbles orbit outside the distortion of Earths atmosphere allows it to take extremely high-resolution images, Hubble has recorded some of the most detailed visible light images ever, allowing a deep view into space and time. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as determining the rate of expansion of the universe. The HST was built by the United States space agency NASA, the Space Telescope Science Institute selects Hubbles targets and processes the resulting data, while the Goddard Space Flight Center controls the spacecraft. Space telescopes were proposed as early as 1923, Hubble was funded in the 1970s, with a proposed launch in 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the Challenger disaster. When finally launched in 1990, Hubbles main mirror was found to have been ground incorrectly, the optics were corrected to their intended quality by a servicing mission in 1993. Hubble is the telescope designed to be serviced in space by astronauts. After launch by Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990, five subsequent Space Shuttle missions repaired, upgraded, the fifth mission was canceled on safety grounds following the Columbia disaster. However, after spirited public discussion, NASA administrator Mike Griffin approved the fifth servicing mission, the telescope is operating as of 2017, and could last until 2030–2040. Its scientific successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled for launch in 2018, the history of the Hubble Space Telescope can be traced back as far as 1946, to the astronomer Lyman Spitzers paper Astronomical advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory. In it, he discussed the two advantages that a space-based observatory would have over ground-based telescopes. First, the resolution would be limited only by diffraction, rather than by the turbulence in the atmosphere. Second, a telescope could observe infrared and ultraviolet light. Spitzer devoted much of his career to pushing for the development of a space telescope, space-based astronomy had begun on a very small scale following World War II, as scientists made use of developments that had taken place in rocket technology. An orbiting solar telescope was launched in 1962 by the United Kingdom as part of the Ariel space program, oAO-1s battery failed after three days, terminating the mission. It was followed by OAO-2, which carried out observations of stars and galaxies from its launch in 1968 until 1972. The continuing success of the OAO program encouraged increasingly strong consensus within the community that the LST should be a major goal
3.
Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2
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The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is a camera formerly installed on the Hubble Space Telescope. The camera was built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is roughly the size of a grand piano. It was installed by servicing mission 1 in 1993, replacing the telescopes original Wide Field, WFPC2 was used to image the Hubble Deep Field in 1995, the Hourglass Nebula and Egg Nebula in 1996, and the Hubble Deep Field South in 1998. During STS-125, WFPC2 was removed and replaced with the Wide Field Camera 3 as part of the missions first spacewalk on May 14,2009, WFPC2 was built by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which also built the predecessor WF/PC camera launched with Hubble in 1990. WFPC2 contains internal corrective optics to fix the spherical aberration in the Hubble telescopes primary mirror, the charge-coupled devices in the WFPC2 detected electromagnetic radiation in a range from 120 nm to 1000 nm. This included the 380 nm to 780 nm of the spectrum, all of the near ultraviolet. The sensitivity distribution of these CCDs is roughly normal, with a peak around 700 nm, WFPC2 featured four identical CCD detectors, each 800x800 pixels. Three of these, arranged in an L-formation, comprise Hubbles Wide Field Camera, adjacent to them is the Planetary Camera, a fourth CCD with different optics. This afforded a more detailed view over a region of the visual field. WFC and PC images are combined, producing the WFPC2s characteristic stairstep image. To allow scientists to view parts of the electromagnetic spectrum the WFPC2 featured a rotating wheel which moves different optical filters into the lightpath. The 48 filter elements included, A set of standard wideband photometric filters, a graduated filter, featuring a wide range of very narrowband filters. By positioning the target object at a part of the field. A number of optical filters tuned to the wavelengths of various atomic emission lines. As predicted, over the course of its mission the WFPC2 experienced degradation of the CCDs, to avoid false positives caused by cosmic rays tripping a given pixel, the output of different calibration shots are compared. Pixels which are consistently hot are recorded, and astronomers who analyse raw WFPC2 images receive a list of these pixels, typically astronomers adjust their photo-processing software to ignore these bad pixels. WFPC2 was largely superseded for broad-band imaging by the Advanced Camera for Surveys, however, the early 2007 failure of ACS resulted in WFPC2 returning to its role as Hubbles primary visible light camera. WFPC2 was removed from HST during Servicing Mission 4 in May 2009, for return to Earth and eventual museum display
4.
NGC 6302
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NGC6302, also called the Bug Nebula, Butterfly Nebula, is a bipolar planetary nebula in the constellation Scorpius. The structure in the nebula is among the most complex ever observed in planetary nebulae, the central star, a white dwarf, was only recently discovered, using the upgraded Wide Field Camera 3 on board the Hubble Space Telescope. The star has a current mass of around 0.64 solar masses and it is surrounded by a particularly dense equatorial disc composed of gas and dust. This dense disc is postulated to have caused the stars outflows to form a structure similar to an hour-glass. This bipolar structure shows many interesting features seen in planetary nebulae such as walls, knots. As it is included in the New General Catalogue, this object has been known since at least 1888, the earliest known study of NGC6302 is by Edward Emerson Barnard, who drew and described it in 1907. Since then it has been the focus of many works and displays many interesting characteristics worthy of study, interest in recent years has shifted from discussions over the excitation method in the nebula to the properties of the large dust component. It featured in some of the first images released after the servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope in September 2009. A dark lane runs through the waist of the nebula obscuring the central star at all wavelengths. Observations of NGC6302 suggest that there may be an orthogonal skirt similar to found in Menzel 3 The nebula is orientated at an angle of 12. 8° against the plane of the sky. This planetary nebula contains a prominent northwest lobe which extends up to 3′.0 away from the star and is estimated to have formed from an eruptive event around 1,900 years ago. It has a part whose walls precisely follow a Hubble-type outflow. At an angular distance of 1. 71′ from the central star, at the extreme periphery of the lobe, the outward velocity exceeds 600 km/s. It was not seen in the first Hubble Space Telescope images, a temperature of 200,000 Kelvin is indicated, and a mass of 0.64 solar masses. The original mass of the star was much higher, but most was ejected in the event which created the planetary nebula. The luminosity and temperature of the star indicate it has ceased nuclear burning and is on its way to becoming a white dwarf and this detection has been disputed, due to the difficulties in forming carbonates in a non-aqueous environment. One of the characteristics of the dust detected in NGC6302 is the existence of both material and carbon-rich material. Stars are usually either O-rich or C-rich, the change from the former to the latter occurring late in the evolution of the due to nuclear
5.
Horsehead Nebula
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The Horsehead Nebula is a dark nebula in the constellation Orion. The nebula is located just to the south of the star Alnitak, which is farthest east on Orions Belt, the nebula was first recorded in 1888 by Scottish astronomer Williamina Fleming on photographic plate B2312 taken at the Harvard College Observatory. The Horsehead Nebula is approximately 1500 light years from Earth and it is one of the most identifiable nebulae because of the shape of its swirling cloud of dark dust and gases, which bears some resemblance to a horses head when viewed from Earth. The dark cloud of dust and gas is a region in the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex where star formation is taking place. It is located in the constellation of Orion, which is prominent in the evening sky in the Northern Hemisphere. This stellar nursery, as it is known, can contain over 100 known kinds of organic and inorganic gases as well as dust, some of the latter is made up of large and complex organic molecules. The red or pinkish glow originates from hydrogen gas predominantly behind the nebula, magnetic fields channel the gases leaving the nebula into streams, shown as streaks in the background glow. A glowing strip of hydrogen gas marks the edge of the cloud. The heavy concentrations of dust in the Horsehead Nebula region and neighbouring Orion Nebula are localized, resulting in alternating sections of nearly complete opacity, the darkness of the Horsehead is caused mostly by thick dust blocking the light of stars behind it. The lower part of the Horseheads neck casts a shadow to the left, the visible dark nebula emerging from the gaseous complex is an active site of the formation of low-mass stars. Bright spots in the Horsehead Nebulas base are young stars just in the process of forming, the Horsehead-Nebula and neighboring structures in a classical view The Horsehead Nebula on interactive astro-photography survey at Wikisky. org The Horsehead Nebula at Constellation Guide
6.
Mystic Mountain
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Mystic Mountain is a term for a region in the Carina Nebula imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. The view was captured by the then-new Wide Field Camera 3, the new view celebrated the telescopes 20th anniversary of being in space in 2010. Mystic Mountain contains multiple Herbig-Haro objects where nascent stars are firing off jets of gas which interact with surrounding clouds of gas and this region is about 7,500 light-years away from Earth. The pillar measures around three light-years in height. org Star-forming regions in the Carina Nebula by Hubblesite. org
7.
Carina Nebula
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The Carina Nebula is a large, complex area of bright and dark nebulosity in the constellation Carina, and is located in the Carina–Sagittarius Arm. The nebula lies at a distance between 6,500 and 10,000 light-years from Earth. The nebula has within its boundaries the large Carina OB1 association and several related open clusters, including numerous O-type stars, Carina OB1 encompasses the star clusters Trumpler 14 and Trumpler 16. Trumpler 14 is one of the youngest known star clusters at half a years old. Trumpler 15, Collinder 228, Collinder 232, NGC3324, NGC3293 is the oldest and furthest from Trumpler 14, indicating sequential and ongoing star formation. The nebula is one of the largest diffuse nebulae in our skies, although it is some four times as large and even brighter than the famous Orion Nebula, the Carina Nebula is much less well known due to its location in the southern sky. It was discovered by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in 1752 from the Cape of Good Hope, Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille discovered the nebula on 25 January 1752. Its dimensions are 120×120 arcminutes centered on the coordinates of right ascension 10h 45m 08. 5s, in modern times it is calculated to be around 6,500 to 10,000 light-years from Earth. Eta Carinae is a highly luminous hypergiant star, estimates of its mass range from 100 to 150 times the mass of the Sun, and its luminosity is about four million times that of the Sun. This object is currently the most massive star that can be studied in detail, because of its location. Several other known stars may be more luminous and more massive, stars with more than 80 times the mass of the Sun produce more than a million times as much light as the Sun. Eta Carinaes effects on the nebula can be seen directly, dark globules and some other less visible objects have tails pointing directly away from the massive star. Within the large bright nebula is a smaller feature, immediately surrounding Eta Carinae itself. It is believed to have been ejected in an enormous outburst in 1841 which briefly made Eta Carinae the second-brightest star in the sky, the Homunculus Nebula is a small HII region, with gas shocked into ionised and excited states. It also absorbs much of the light from the extremely luminous central stellar system and it is the brightest object in the sky at mid-IR wavelengths. Values obtained using this method are around 2.3 kiloparsecs with a margin of error around 100 parsecs, the same calculations also return the inclination of the axis of the Homunculus relative to the line of sight. This turns out to be 41°, or 49° relative to the plane of the sky, john Herschel used the term lemniscate-oval vacuity when first describing it, and subsequently referred to it simply as the oval vacuity. The name Keyhole Nebula then came into use, sometimes for the Keyhole itself
8.
Camera
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Thumb|A2016 Nikon D810 A camera is an optical instrument for recording or capturing images, which may be stored locally, transmitted to another location, or both. The images may be individual still photographs or sequences of images constituting videos or movies, the camera is a remote sensing device as it senses subjects without physical contact. The word camera comes from camera obscura, which means dark chamber and is the Latin name of the device for projecting an image of external reality onto a flat surface. The modern photographic camera evolved from the camera obscura, the functioning of the camera is very similar to the functioning of the human eye. A camera may work with the light of the spectrum or with other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. A still camera is a device which creates a single image of an object or scene. All cameras use the basic design, light enters an enclosed box through a converging lens/convex lens. A shutter mechanism controls the length of time that light can enter the camera, a display, often a liquid crystal display, permits the user to view scene to be recorded and settings such as ISO speed, exposure, and shutter speed. A movie camera or a video camera operates similarly to a camera, except it records a series of static images in rapid succession. When the images are combined and displayed in order, the illusion of motion is achieved, the forerunner to the photographic camera was the camera obscura. The oldest known record of this principle is a description by Han Chinese philosopher Mozi, Mozi correctly asserted that the camera obscura image is inverted because light travels in straight lines from its source. In the 11th century Arab physicist Ibn al-Haytham s wrote very influential essays about experiments with light through an opening in a darkened room. The use of a lens in the opening of a wall or closed window shutter of a room to project images used as a drawing aid has been traced back to circa 1550. Since the late 17th century portable camera obscura devices in tents, before the development of the photographic camera, it had been known for hundreds of years that some substances, such as silver salts, darkened when exposed to sunlight. The first person to use this chemistry to create images was Thomas Wedgwood, to create images, Wedgwood placed items, such as leaves and insect wings, on ceramic pots coated with silver nitrate, and exposed the set-up to light. These images werent permanent, however, as Wedgwood didnt employ a fixing mechanism and he ultimately failed at his goal of using the process to create fixed images created by a camera obscura. The first permanent photograph of an image was made in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles. Niépce had been experimenting with ways to fix the images of a camera obscura since 1816, the photograph Niépce succeeded in creating shows the view from his window
9.
Charge-coupled device
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A charge-coupled device is a device for the movement of electrical charge, usually from within the device to an area where the charge can be manipulated, for example conversion into a digital value. This is achieved by shifting the signals between stages within the one at a time. CCDs move charge between capacitive bins in the device, with the shift allowing for the transfer of charge between bins, in recent years CCD has become a major technology for digital imaging. In a CCD image sensor, pixels are represented by p-doped metal-oxide-semiconductors capacitors, the charge-coupled device was invented in 1969 at AT&T Bell Labs by Willard Boyle and George E. Smith. The lab was working on bubble memory when Boyle and Smith conceived of the design of what they termed, in their notebook. The device could be used as a shift register, the essence of the design was the ability to transfer charge along the surface of a semiconductor from one storage capacitor to the next. The concept was similar in principle to the device, which was developed at Philips Research Labs during the late 1960s. The first patent on the application of CCDs to imaging was assigned to Michael Tompsett, the initial paper describing the concept listed possible uses as a memory, a delay line, and an imaging device. The first experimental device demonstrating the principle was a row of closely spaced metal squares on a silicon surface electrically accessed by wire bonds. The first working CCD made with integrated circuit technology was a simple 8-bit shift register and this device had input and output circuits and was used to demonstrate its use as a shift register and as a crude eight pixel linear imaging device. Development of the device progressed at a rapid rate, by 1971, Bell researchers led by Michael Tompsett were able to capture images with simple linear devices. Several companies, including Fairchild Semiconductor, RCA and Texas Instruments, picked up on the invention, fairchilds effort, led by ex-Bell researcher Gil Amelio, was the first with commercial devices, and by 1974 had a linear 500-element device and a 2-D100 x 100 pixel device. Steven Sasson, an engineer working for Kodak, invented the first digital still camera using a Fairchild 100 x 100 CCD in 1975. The first KH-11 KENNAN reconnaissance satellite equipped with charge-coupled device array technology for imaging was launched in December 1976, under the leadership of Kazuo Iwama, Sony also started a large development effort on CCDs involving a significant investment. Eventually, Sony managed to mass-produce CCDs for their camcorders, before this happened, Iwama died in August 1982, subsequently, a CCD chip was placed on his tombstone to acknowledge his contribution. He was also awarded the 2012 IEEE Edison Medal For pioneering contributions to imaging devices including CCD Imagers, cameras, in a CCD for capturing images, there is a photoactive region, and a transmission region made out of a shift register. An image is projected through a lens onto the capacitor array, once the array has been exposed to the image, a control circuit causes each capacitor to transfer its contents to its neighbor. The last capacitor in the array dumps its charge into a charge amplifier, by repeating this process, the controlling circuit converts the entire contents of the array in the semiconductor to a sequence of voltages
10.
Prism
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In optics, a prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that refract light. At least two of the surfaces must have an angle between them. The exact angles between the surfaces depend on the application, the traditional geometrical shape is that of a triangular prism with a triangular base and rectangular sides, and in colloquial use prism usually refers to this type. Some types of optical prism are not in fact in the shape of geometric prisms, prisms can be made from any material that is transparent to the wavelengths for which they are designed. Typical materials include glass, plastic and fluorite, a dispersive prism can be used to break light up into its constituent spectral colors. Furthermore, prisms can be used to light, or to split light into components with different polarizations. Light changes speed as it moves from one medium to another and this speed change causes the light to be refracted and to enter the new medium at a different angle. The degree of bending of the lights path depends on the angle that the incident beam of light makes with the surface, the refractive index of many materials varies with the wavelength or color of the light used, a phenomenon known as dispersion. This causes light of different colors to be refracted differently and to leave the prism at different angles and this can be used to separate a beam of white light into its constituent spectrum of colors. Prisms will generally disperse light over a larger frequency bandwidth than diffraction gratings. Furthermore, prisms do not suffer from complications arising from overlapping spectral orders, prisms are sometimes used for the internal reflection at the surfaces rather than for dispersion. If light inside the prism hits one of the surfaces at a steep angle, total internal reflection occurs. This makes a prism a useful substitute for a mirror in some situations, ray angle deviation and dispersion through a prism can be determined by tracing a sample ray through the element and using Snells law at each interface. For the prism shown at right, the angles are given by θ0 ′ = arcsin θ1 = α − θ0 ′ θ1 ′ = arcsin θ2 = θ1 ′ − α. All angles are positive in the shown in the image. For a prism in air n 0 = n 2 ≃1 and this allows the nonlinear equation in the deviation angle δ to be approximated by δ ≈ θ0 − α + = θ0 − α + n α − θ0 = α. The deviation angle depends on wavelength through n, so for a thin prism the deviation angle varies with wavelength according to δ ≈ α, before Isaac Newton, it was believed that white light was colorless, and that the prism itself produced the color. It was only later that Young and Fresnel combined Newtons particle theory with Huygens wave theory to show that color is the manifestation of lights wavelength
11.
Pixel
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The address of a pixel corresponds to its physical coordinates. LCD pixels are manufactured in a grid, and are often represented using dots or squares. Each pixel is a sample of an image, more samples typically provide more accurate representations of the original. The intensity of each pixel is variable, in color imaging systems, a color is typically represented by three or four component intensities such as red, green, and blue, or cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. The word pixel is based on a contraction of pix and el, the word pixel was first published in 1965 by Frederic C. Billingsley of JPL, to describe the elements of video images from space probes to the Moon. Billingsley had learned the word from Keith E. McFarland, at the Link Division of General Precision in Palo Alto, McFarland said simply it was in use at the time. The word is a combination of pix, for picture, the word pix appeared in Variety magazine headlines in 1932, as an abbreviation for the word pictures, in reference to movies. By 1938, pix was being used in reference to pictures by photojournalists. The concept of a picture element dates to the earliest days of television, some authors explain pixel as picture cell, as early as 1972. In graphics and in image and video processing, pel is often used instead of pixel, for example, IBM used it in their Technical Reference for the original PC. A pixel is generally thought of as the smallest single component of a digital image, however, the definition is highly context-sensitive. For example, there can be printed pixels in a page, or pixels carried by electronic signals, or represented by digital values, or pixels on a display device, or pixels in a digital camera. This list is not exhaustive and, depending on context, synonyms include pel, sample, byte, bit, dot, Pixels can be used as a unit of measure such as,2400 pixels per inch,640 pixels per line, or spaced 10 pixels apart. For example, a high-quality photographic image may be printed with 600 ppi on a 1200 dpi inkjet printer, even higher dpi numbers, such as the 4800 dpi quoted by printer manufacturers since 2002, do not mean much in terms of achievable resolution. The more pixels used to represent an image, the closer the result can resemble the original, the number of pixels in an image is sometimes called the resolution, though resolution has a more specific definition.3 megapixels. The pixels, or color samples, that form an image may or may not be in one-to-one correspondence with screen pixels. In computing, a composed of pixels is known as a bitmapped image or a raster image
12.
Advanced Camera for Surveys
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The Advanced Camera for Surveys is a third-generation axial instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. The initial design and scientific capabilities of ACS were defined by a team based at Johns Hopkins University and it was launched on March 1,2002 as part of Servicing Mission 3B and installed in HST on March 7, replacing the Faint Object Camera, the last original instrument. ACS cost 86 million USD at that time, ACS is a highly versatile instrument that became the primary imaging instrument aboard HST. On 25 June 2006 ACS went out of due to electronic failure. It was powered up successfully after switching to its redundant set of electronics, the instrument sub-systems, including the CCD detectors, all seemed to be working well and after some engineering tests, ACS resumed science operations on July 4,2006. On 23 September 2006, the ACS again failed, though by 9 October the problem had been diagnosed and resolved, on January 27,2007 the ACS failed due to a short circuit in its backup power supply. The instruments Solar Blind Channel was returned to operation on 19 February 2007 using the side-1 electronics, the Wide Field Channel was returned to service by STS-125 in May 2009. The High Resolution Channel, however, remains offline, ACS includes three independent channels, each optimized for specific scientific tasks, The WFC is the most utilized channel of ACS. Its detector consists of two butted 2048x4096,15 µm/pixel charge-coupled devices for a total of 16 megapixels manufactured by Scientific Imaging Technologies, the WFC plate scale is 0. 05″ per pixel and it has an effective field-of-view of 202″×202″. The spectral range of the WFC detector is 350–1100 nm, an example of a use of this channel was SWEEPS, which found 16 candidate exoplanets in the Galactic core. The HRC, currently disabled due to a fault, used two light suppression options to mask out bright astronomical sources. The first was a commandable coronagraphic mask that included two occulting spots, one of diameter 1.8 at the center of the field and the other of diameter 3.0 nearer to a corner. The first spot was the most popular of the two, for example, for imaging circumstellar disks around nearby stars or the host galaxies of luminous quasars. The second was the so-called Fastie Finger,0.8 in width and 5 in length, the HRC detector was a 1024×1024 SITe CCD which had a smaller field-of-view than the WFC but twice the spatial sampling. This detector was also more sensitive than the WFC at near-ultraviolet wavelengths. The Multi Anode Microchannel Array of the SBC is a low-background photon-counting device optimized for the ultraviolet in the range of 115–170 nm. It consists of a photocathode, a plate, and an anode array. Its spatial sampling is 0.030 per pixel and its field-of-view is 25×25, the ACS SBC is in fact a flight spare from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph
13.
Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer
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The Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer is a scientific instrument for infrared astronomy, installed on the Hubble Space Telescope, operating from 1997 to 1999, and from 2002 to 2008. Images produced by NICMOS contain data from the part of the light spectrum. NICMOS was conceived and designed by the NICMOS Instrument Definition Team centered at Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, each optical channel contains a 256×256 pixel photodiode array of Hg0. 554Cd0. 446Te infrared detectors bonded to a sapphire substrate, read out in four independent 128×128 quadrants. NICMOS has been replaced by the infrared channel of Wide Field Camera 3 after its installation in 2009. NICMOS last worked in 2008, so WFC3 allowed NIR astronomy to continue in a powerful way, for example, the mirror is kept at a stable and relatively high temperature by heaters. The IR background flux collected by cooled focal plane IR instruments like NICMOS or WFC3 is dominated, at short wavelengths. Despite this, the combination of Hubbles mirror and NICMOS offered never-before seen levels of quality in near-infrared performance at that time. NICMOS in turn has been superseded by the Wide Field Camera 3, which has a much larger field of view. When conducting infrared measurements, it is necessary to keep the infrared detectors cooled to avoid having infrared interference from the instruments own thermal emissions. NICMOS contains a cryogenic dewar, that cooled its detectors to about 61 K, when NICMOS was installed in 1997, the dewar flask contained a 230-pound block of nitrogen ice. Due to a short that arose on March 4,1997, during the instrument commissioning. NICMOS was returned to service soon after SM 3B, a new software upload in September 2008 necessitated a brief shutdown of the NICMOS cooling system. Several attempts to restart the system were unsuccessful due to issues with the cryogenic circulator. After waiting more than six weeks for parts of the instrument to warm up, and theorized ice particles to sublimate from the circulating loop. An Anomaly Review Board was then convened by NASA, a successful restart at 13,30 EST on 16 December 2008 led to four days of cooler operations followed by another shutdown. The circulation flow rate to NICMOS was greatly reduced during this operating period confirming blockage in the circulation loop, continued operation at reduced flow rates would limit NICMOS science so plans for purging and refilling the circulation system with clean neon gas were developed by NASA. The circulation loop is equipped with an extra neon tank and remotely operated solenoid valves for on-orbit purge-fill operations, as of 2013, these purge-fill operations have not yet been performed. On June 18,2010, it was announced NICMOS would not be available for science during the latest proposal Cycle 18
14.
James Webb Space Telescope
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The James Webb Space Telescope, previously known as Next Generation Space Telescope, is a part of NASAs ongoing Flagship program. It is under construction and scheduled to launch in October 2018, the JWST will offer unprecedented resolution and sensitivity from long-wavelength visible light, through near-infrared to the mid-infrared. While the Hubble Space Telescope has a 2. 4-meter mirror, a large sunshield will keep its mirror and four science instruments below 50 K. JWSTs capabilities will enable a broad range of investigations across the fields of astronomy and cosmology. One particular goal involves observing some of the most distant events and objects in the Universe and these types of targets are beyond the reach of current ground and space-based instruments. Another goal is understanding the formation of stars and planets and this will include direct imaging of exoplanets. In gestation since 1996, the project represents a collaboration of the European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency. It is named after James E. Webb, the administrator of NASA. NASA has described JWST as the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope. JWST has the objective to see objects, typically both older and farther away than previous instruments could assess. The result was to extend the life of Hubble until JWST as the next generation telescope could go online. This led to an altered design for JWST to obtain images deeper into the infrared than Hubble. The JWST originated in 1996 as the Next Generation Space Telescope, in 2002 it was renamed after NASAs second administrator James E. Webb, noted for playing a key role in the Apollo program and establishing scientific research as a core NASA activity. The telescope has a mass about half of Hubble Space Telescopes. The JWST is oriented toward near-infrared astronomy, but can also see orange and red light, as well as the mid-infrared region. The JWST will operate near the Earth-Sun L2 point, approximately 930,000 mi beyond the Earth, by way of comparison, Hubble orbits 340 miles above Earths surface, and the Moon is roughly 250,000 miles from Earth. This distance makes post-launch repair or upgrade of the JWST hardware virtually impossible and this will keep the temperature of the spacecraft below 50 K, necessary for infrared observations. The prime contractor is Northrop Grumman and its nominal mission time is five years, with a goal of ten years. JWST needs to use propellant to maintain its orbit around L2, which provides an upper limit to its designed lifetime
15.
Thermoelectric cooling
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Thermoelectric cooling uses the Peltier effect to create a heat flux between the junction of two different types of materials. Such an instrument is called a Peltier device, Peltier heat pump. It can be used either for heating or for cooling, although in practice the application is cooling. It can also be used as a controller that either heats or cools. This technology is far less commonly applied to refrigeration than vapor-compression refrigeration is and its main disadvantages are high cost and poor power efficiency. Many researchers and companies are trying to develop Peltier coolers that are cheap, a Peltier cooler can also be used as a thermoelectric generator. When operated as a cooler, a voltage is applied across the device, and as a result, a difference in temperature will build up between the two sides. When operated as a generator, one side of the device is heated to a greater than the other side, and as a result. However, a well-designed Peltier cooler will be a mediocre thermoelectric generator and vice versa, due to different design, Thermoelectric coolers operate by the Peltier effect. The device has two sides, and when a DC electric current flows through the device, it brings heat from one side to the other, so that one side gets cooler while the other gets hotter. The hot side is attached to a sink so that it remains at ambient temperature. In some applications, multiple coolers can be cascaded together for lower temperature, two unique semiconductors, one n-type and one p-type, are used because they need to have different electron densities. The semiconductors are placed thermally in parallel to other and electrically in series. When a voltage is applied to the ends of the two semiconductors there is a flow of DC current across the junction of the semiconductors causing a temperature difference. The side with the cooling plate absorbs heat which is moved to the other side of the device where the heat sink is. TECs are typically connected side by side and sandwiched between two ceramic plates, the cooling ability of the total unit is then proportional to the number of TECs in it. The more heat moved using a TEC, the less efficient it becomes, the amount of heat that can be absorbed is proportional to the current and time. Q = P I t where P is the Peltier Coefficient, I is the current, the Peltier Coefficient is dependent on temperature and the materials the TEC is made of
16.
Wide Field and Planetary Camera
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The Wide Field/Planetary Camera was a camera installed on the Hubble Space Telescope until December 1993. It was one of the instruments on Hubble at launch, however, it produced uniquely valuable high resolution images of relatively bright astronomical objects, allowing for a number of discoveries to be made by HST even in its aberrated condition. WFPC was proposed by James A. Westphal, a professor of science at Caltech, and was designed, constructed. The high sensitivity offered such promise that many astronomers strongly argued that CCDs should be considered for Hubble Space Telescope instrumentation and this first WFPC consisted of two separate cameras, each comprising 4 800x800 pixel Texas Instruments CCDs arranged to cover a contiguous field of view. The Wide Field camera had a 0.1 arcsecond pixel scale and was intended for the observations of faint sources at the cost of angular resolution. The Planetary Camera had a 0.043 arcsecond pixel scale and was intended for high-resolution observations, selection between the two cameras was done with a four-facetted pyramid that rotated by 45 degrees. As part of the service mission the WFPC was swapped out for a replacement version. The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 improved on its predecessor, to avoid potential confusion, the WFPC is now most commonly referred to as WFPC1. On its return to Earth, the WFPC was disassembled and parts of it were used in Wide Field Camera 3, the instrument had two different cameras within, the Wide Field and the Planetary Camera. The Wide Field camera had a field of view compared to the Planetary Camera. However, when COSTAR was added, which could correct the mirror problem WFPC was also replaced
17.
STS-61
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STS-61 was the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, and the fifth flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. The mission launched on 2 December 1993 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the mission restored the spaceborne observatorys vision, marred by spherical aberration, with the installation of a new main camera and a corrective optics package. This correction occurred more than three and a years after the Hubble was launched aboard STS-31 in April 1990. The flight also brought instrument upgrades and new solar arrays to the telescope, with its very heavy workload, the STS-61 mission was one of the most complex in the Shuttles history. It lasted almost 11 days, and crew members made five spacewalks, even the re-positioning of Intelsat VI on STS-49 in May 1992 required only four. The flight plan allowed for two additional EVAs, which could have raised the number to seven. The final two contingency EVAs were not made, in order to complete the mission without too much fatigue, the five extravehicular working sessions were shared between two pairs of different astronauts alternating their shifts. The internal HST payload package was not affected because it was sealed. On November 18 Endeavour experienced a failure of a transducer on the hydraulic actuator. To replace the actuator would have required a rollback to the Orbiter Processing Facility because access to the actuator was only through the Main Landing Gear wheel well. Since there were 4 delta-P transducers and the Launch Commit Criteria required only 3 of 4, the flight crew arrived at the KSC Shuttle Landing Facility on November 27 and the payload bay doors were closed at 3, 20pm on November 28. The first launch attempt on December 1,1993 was scrubbed due to weather constraint violations at the Shuttle Landing Facility, just before the scrub the range was also in a no-go situation due to an 800 ft long ship in restricted sea zone. A 24‑hour scrub turn-a-round was put into effect with a launch window extending between 4, 26am to 5, 38am on December 2,1993, Launch occurred.019 seconds from its scheduled time of 4, 26am December 2,1993. After launch on 2 December 1993, the astronauts carried out a series of checks on the vehicle and went to sleep seven and a half hours after liftoff. Endeavour performed a series of burns that allowed the shuttle to close in on the Hubble Space Telescope at a rate of 60 nautical miles per 95-minute orbit, the crew made a detailed inspection of the payload and checked out both the robot arm and the spacesuits. All of Endeavours systems functioned well as the crew got a full days sleep in preparation for the evenings rendezvous, at the end of Flight Day 2, Endeavour was 190 nautical miles behind HST and closing. HST was sighted by astronaut Jeffrey A. Hoffman using binoculars, the closing speed remained the same until the next reaction control system firing, at 8,34 pm CST. This height-adjusting burn changed the shuttles velocity by 4.6 feet per second, modified the high point of Endeavours orbit, and fine-tuned its course toward a point 40 miles behind HST
18.
Goddard Space Flight Center
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The Goddard Space Flight Center is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1,1959 as NASAs first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Washington, D. C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. GSFC, one of ten major NASA field centers, is named in recognition of Dr. Robert H. Goddard, GSFC is a major U. S. laboratory for developing and operating unmanned scientific spacecraft. GSFC conducts scientific investigation, development and operation of space systems, Goddard scientists can develop and support a mission, and Goddard engineers and technicians can design and build the spacecraft for that mission. Mather shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on COBE, past missions managed by GSFC include the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, SMM, COBE, IUE, and ROSAT. Goddard is NASAs first, and oldest, space center and its original charter was to perform five major functions on behalf of NASA, technology development and fabrication, planning, scientific research, technical operations, and project management. The center is organized into directorates, each charged with one of these key functions. Until May 1,1959, NASAs presence in Greenbelt, Maryland was known as the Beltsville Space Center and it was then renamed the Goddard Space Flight Center, after Dr. Robert H. Goddard. Goddard Space Flight Center contributed to Project Mercury, Americas first manned flight program. The Center assumed a role for the project in its early days and managed the first 250 employees involved in the effort. However, the size and scope of Project Mercury soon prompted NASA to build a new Manned Spacecraft Center, now the Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Project Mercurys personnel and activities were transferred there in 1961. However, the Center focused primarily on designing unmanned satellites and spacecraft for research missions. Goddard pioneered several fields of development, including modular spacecraft design. Goddards Solar Max satellite, launched in 1980, was repaired by astronauts on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984. The Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, remains in service and continues to grow in capability thanks to its modular design, today, the center remains involved in each of NASAs key programs. Goddard has developed more instruments for planetary exploration than any other organization, Goddards partly wooded campus is a few miles northeast of Washington, D. C. in Prince Georges County. The center is on Greenbelt Road, which is Maryland Route 193, baltimore, Annapolis, and NASA Headquarters in Washington are 30–45 minutes away by highway. Greenbelt also has a station with access to the Washington Metro system
19.
Maryland
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The states largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, the state is named after Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I of England. George Calvert was the first Lord of Baltimore and the first English proprietor of the colonial grant. Maryland was the state to ratify the United States Constitution. Maryland is one of the smallest U. S. states in terms of area, as well as one of the most densely populated, Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles and is comparable in overall area with Belgium. It is the 42nd largest and 9th smallest state and is closest in size to the state of Hawaii, the next largest state, its neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland. Maryland possesses a variety of topography within its borders, contributing to its nickname America in Miniature. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted by Washington, D. C. which sits on land that was part of Montgomery and Prince Georges counties and including the town of Georgetown. This land was ceded to the United States Federal Government in 1790 to form the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. Close to the town of Hancock, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state. This geographical curiosity makes Maryland the narrowest state, bordered by the Mason–Dixon line to the north, portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain, earthquakes in Maryland are infrequent and small due to the states distance from seismic/earthquake zones. The M5.8 Virginia earthquake in 2011 was felt moderately throughout Maryland, buildings in the state are not well-designed for earthquakes and can suffer damage easily. The lack of any glacial history accounts for the scarcity of Marylands natural lakes, laurel Oxbow Lake is an over one-hundred-year-old 55-acre natural lake two miles north of Maryland City and adjacent to Russett. Chews Lake is a natural lake two miles south-southeast of Upper Marlboro. There are numerous lakes, the largest of them being the Deep Creek Lake. Maryland has shale formations containing natural gas, where fracking is theoretically possible, as is typical of states on the East Coast, Marylands plant life is abundant and healthy. Middle Atlantic coastal forests, typical of the southeastern Atlantic coastal plain, grow around Chesapeake Bay, moving west, a mixture of Northeastern coastal forests and Southeastern mixed forests cover the central part of the state
20.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
21.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
22.
NASA
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower established NASA in 1958 with a distinctly civilian orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29,1958, disestablishing NASAs predecessor, the new agency became operational on October 1,1958. Since that time, most US space exploration efforts have led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. NASA shares data with various national and international such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. Since 2011, NASA has been criticized for low cost efficiency, from 1946, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been experimenting with rocket planes such as the supersonic Bell X-1. In the early 1950s, there was challenge to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year. An effort for this was the American Project Vanguard, after the Soviet launch of the worlds first artificial satellite on October 4,1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own fledgling space efforts. This led to an agreement that a new federal agency based on NACA was needed to conduct all non-military activity in space. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was created in February 1958 to develop technology for military application. On July 29,1958, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, a NASA seal was approved by President Eisenhower in 1959. Elements of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and the United States Naval Research Laboratory were incorporated into NASA, earlier research efforts within the US Air Force and many of ARPAs early space programs were also transferred to NASA. In December 1958, NASA gained control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter, the experimental rocket-powered aircraft programs started by NACA were extended by NASA as support for manned spaceflight. This was followed by a space capsule program, and in turn by a two-man capsule program. This goal was met in 1969 by the Apollo program, however, reduction of the perceived threat and changing political priorities almost immediately caused the termination of most of these plans. NASA turned its attention to an Apollo-derived temporary space laboratory, to date, NASA has launched a total of 166 manned space missions on rockets, and thirteen X-15 rocket flights above the USAF definition of spaceflight altitude,260,000 feet. The X-15 was an NACA experimental rocket-powered hypersonic research aircraft, developed in conjunction with the US Air Force, the design featured a slender fuselage with fairings along the side containing fuel and early computerized control systems
23.
Pillars of Creation
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Pillars of Creation is a photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of elephant trunks of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, some 6, 500-7,000 light years from Earth. They are so named because the gas and dust are in the process of creating new stars, taken on April 1,1995, it was named one of the top ten photographs from Hubble by Space. com. The astronomers responsible for the photo were Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen from Arizona State University, in 2011, the region was re-photographed by ESAs Herschel Space Observatory. When William Jennings Bryan published The Worlds Famous Orations in 1906, he included an 1857 sermon by London pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon titled “The Condescension of Christ”. He who created all things, and bears up the pillars of creation. ”The pillars are composed of molecular hydrogen and dust that are being eroded by photoevaporation from the ultraviolet light of relatively close. The leftmost pillar is about four years in length. EGGs are themselves incubators of new stars, the stars then emerge from the EGGs, which then are evaporated. Images taken with the Spitzer Space Telescope uncovered a cloud of hot dust in the vicinity of the Pillars of Creation that Nicolas Flagey accounted to be a shock wave produced by a supernova. The appearance of the cloud suggests the supernova shockwave would have destroyed the Pillars of Creation 6,000 years ago, if this is the case, the Pillars of Creation will undergo a more gradual erosion. Hubbles photo of the pillars is composed of 32 different images from four separate cameras in the Wide Field and this effect is also present on other four-camera Hubble pictures, and can be displayed at any corner depending on how the image has been re-oriented for publication. The image was photographed by the Hubble Telescopes Wide Field Camera 3, installed in 2009, and produced using near-infrared and visible light exposure
24.
Eagle Nebula
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The Eagle Nebula is a young open cluster of stars in the constellation Serpens, discovered by Jean-Philippe de Chéseaux in 1745–46. The nebula contains several active star-forming gas and dust regions, including the Pillars of Creation, the Eagle Nebula is part of a diffuse emission nebula, or H II region, which is catalogued as IC4703. This region of current star formation is about 7000 light-years distant. A spire of gas that can be seen coming off the nebula in the part is approximately 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometers long. The cluster associated with the nebula has approximately 8100 stars, which are concentrated in a gap in the molecular cloud to the north-west of the Pillars. The brightest star has an apparent magnitude of +8.24 and it is actually a binary star formed of an O3. 5V star plus an O7. 5V companion. This star has a mass of roughly 80 solar masses, the clusters age has been estimated to be 1–2 million years. The descriptive names reflect impressions of the shape of the central pillar rising from the southeast into the central luminous area, the name Star Queen Nebula was introduced by Robert Burnham, Jr. reflecting his characterization of the central pillar as the Star Queen shown in silhouette. Images taken by Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen using the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995 greatly improved understanding of processes inside the nebula. One of these photographs became famous as the Pillars of Creation, the small dark areas in the photograph are believed to be protostars. These columns – which resemble stalagmites protruding from the floor of a cavern – are composed of hydrogen gas and dust. Inside the columns and on their surface astronomers have found knots or globules of denser gas, stars are being formed inside some of these EGGs. X-ray images from the Chandra observatory compared with Hubbles Pillars image have shown that X-ray sources do not coincide with the pillars, any protostars in the pillars EGGs are not yet hot enough to emit X-rays. Evidence from the Spitzer Telescope suggests that the pillars in M16 may already have been destroyed by a supernova explosion, hot gas observed by Spitzer in 2007 suggests that the area was disturbed by a supernova that exploded some 8000 to 9000 years ago
25.
Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
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The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph is a science instrument that was installed on the Hubble Space Telescope during Servicing Mission 4 in May 2009. It is designed for ultraviolet spectroscopy of faint point sources with a power of ≈1. COS was developed and built by the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy at the University of Colorado at Boulder, while STIS operates across a wider wavelength range, COS is many times more sensitive in the UV. The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph is a spectrograph that is optimized for high sensitivity. COS has two channels, one for Far Ultraviolet spectroscopy covering 115–205 nm and one for Near Ultraviolet spectroscopy spanning 170–320 nm. The FUV channel can work one of three diffraction gratings, the NUV with one of four, providing both low and medium resolution spectra. In addition, COS has a field of view NUV imaging mode intended for target acquisition. One key technique for achieving high sensitivity in the FUV is minimizing the number of optics and this is done because FUV reflection and transmission efficiencies are typically quite low compared to what is common at visible wavelengths. The 2.5 arc second diameter entrance aperture allows ≈ 95% of the light from sources to enter COS. Post launch performance closely matched expectations, instrument sensitivity is close to pre-launch calibration values, and detector background is exceptionally low. FUV resolution is lower than pre-launch predictions due to mid-frequency polishing errors on the HST primary mirror. Observations are also planned of extended objects, Spectroscopy provides a wealth of information about distant astronomical objects that is unobtainable through imaging, Spectroscopy lies at the heart of astrophysical inference. Detailed information on all of these properties can be gleaned from high-quality spectroscopic data, for distant objects, some of these properties can only be measured through spectroscopy. The UV offers access to features that provide key diagnostic information that cannot be obtained at other wavelengths. Obtaining absorption spectra of interstellar and intergalactic gas forms the basis of many of the COS science programs, in general, COS will address questions such as, What is the large-scale structure of matter in the Universe. How did galaxies form out of the intergalactic medium, what types of galactic halos and outflowing winds do star-forming galaxies produce. How were the elements for life created in massive stars. How do stars and planetary systems form from dust grains in molecular clouds, what is the composition of planetary atmospheres and comets in our Solar System
26.
Faint Object Camera
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The Faint Object Camera was a camera installed on the Hubble Space Telescope from launch in 1990 until 2002. It was replaced by the Advanced Camera for Surveys, in December 1993, Hubbles vision was corrected on STS-61 by installing COSTARS, which corrected the problem with Hubbles mirror before it reached an instrument like FOC. Later instruments had this built in, which is why it was possible to later remove COSTARS itself. The camera was built by Dornier GmbH and was funded by the European Space Agency, the unit actually consists of two complete and independent camera systems designed to provide extremely high resolution, exceeding 0.05 arcseconds. It is designed to very faint UV and optical light from 115 to 650 nanometers in wavelength. FOC has been compared to a lens, providing a high-resolution in a small field of view. FOC could distinguish two points 0.05 arc-seconds apart. The camera was designed to operate at low, medium, or high resolution, the angular resolution and field of view at each resolution were as follows, First FOC image Images of Nova Cygni 1992 With Hubbles Old and New Optics Pluto by FOC
27.
Spitzer Space Telescope
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The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, is an infrared space telescope launched in 2003. It is the fourth and final of the NASA Great Observatories program, the planned mission period was to be 2.5 years with a pre-launch expectation that the mission could extend to five or slightly more years until the onboard liquid helium supply was exhausted. This occurred on 15 May 2009, without liquid helium to cool the telescope to the very low temperatures needed to operate, most of the instruments are no longer usable. All Spitzer data, from both the primary and warm phases, are archived at the Infrared Science Archive, in keeping with NASA tradition, the telescope was renamed after its successful demonstration of operation, on 18 December 2003. Unlike most telescopes that are named after famous deceased astronomers by a board of scientists, the contest led to the telescope being named in honor of astronomer Lyman Spitzer, who had promoted the concept of space telescopes in the 1940s. Spitzer wrote a 1946 report for RAND Corporation describing the advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory, the US$720 million Spitzer was launched on 25 August 2003 at 05,35,39 UTC from Cape Canaveral SLC-17B aboard a Delta II 7920H rocket. It follows a heliocentric instead of orbit, trailing and drifting away from Earths orbit at approximately 0.1 astronomical unit per year. The primary mirror is 85 centimeters in diameter, f/12, made of beryllium and was cooled to 5.5 K, by the early 1970s, astronomers began to consider the possibility of placing an infrared telescope above the obscuring effects of Earths atmosphere. Anticipating the major results from an upcoming Explorer satellite and from the Shuttle mission, long-duration spaceflights of infrared telescopes cooled to cryogenic temperatures. Earlier infrared observations had been made by both space-based and ground-based observatories, ground-based observatories have the drawback that at infrared wavelengths or frequencies, both the Earths atmosphere and the telescope itself will radiate strongly. Additionally, the atmosphere is opaque at most infrared wavelengths and this necessitates lengthy exposure times and greatly decreases the ability to detect faint objects. It could be compared to trying to observe the stars at noon, previous space observatories were launched during the 1980s and 1990s and great advances in astronomical technology have been made since then. Most of the early concepts envisioned repeated flights aboard the NASA Space Shuttle and this approach was developed in an era when the Shuttle program was expected to support weekly flights of up to 30 days duration. A May 1983 NASA proposal described SIRTF as a Shuttle-attached mission, several flights were anticipated with a probable transition into a more extended mode of operation, possibly in association with a future space platform or space station. SIRTF would be a 1-meter class, cryogenically cooled, multi-user facility consisting of a telescope, the first flight was expected to occur about 1990, with the succeeding flights anticipated beginning approximately one year later. By September 1983 NASA was considering the possibility of a long duration SIRTF mission, Spitzer is the only one of the Great Observatories not launched by the Space Shuttle, as was originally intended. However, after the 1986 Challenger disaster, the Centaur LH2–LOX upper stage, the mission underwent a series of redesigns during the 1990s, primarily due to budget considerations. This resulted in a smaller but still fully capable mission that could use the smaller Delta II expendable launch vehicle
28.
Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph
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The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph is a spectrograph, also with a camera mode, installed on the Hubble Space Telescope. Aerospace engineer Bruce Woodgate of the Goddard Space Flight Center was the investigator and creator of the STIS. It operated continuously from 1997 until a power failure in August 2004. After repairs, it began operating again in 2009, the spectrograph has made many important observations, including the first spectrum of the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet, HD 209458b. The STIS was installed on Hubble in 1997 during its second servicing mission by Mark Lee and Steven Smith, replacing the High Resolution Spectrograph and it was designed to operate for five years. On August 3,2004 an electronic failure rendered STIS inoperable, in order to bring it back to operational status, the instrument was repaired by space shuttle astronauts during STS-125, Servicing Mission 4, launched on May 11,2009. The crew did a long EVA to repair the instrument, congratulations, you brought STIS back to life The STIS has three 1024×1024 detector arrays. The first is a device with a 52×52 arc-second field of view, covering the visible. The other two detectors are Multi-Anode Multichannel Arrays, each with a 25×25 arc-second field of view, one is Cs2Te, and covers the near-UV between 160 nm and 310 nm. The other is CsI and covers the far-UV between 115 nm and 170 nm, STIS is both a spectrograph and an imaging camera, and is focused on ultraviolet light
29.
Faint Object Spectrograph
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The Faint Object Spectrograph was a spectrograph installed on the Hubble Space Telescope. It was replaced by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph in 1997, instrument type, Spectrograph Wavelength range,115 to 850 nm A technical description of the construction and operation of the FOS can be found in NASA technical report CP-2244. The digicons suffered from inadequate magnetic shielding, which meant that an image was smeared over several pixels. The Faint Object Spectrograph ESA/Hubble Release about FOS FOS at ESA/Hubble
30.
Space Shuttle
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The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated by the U. S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System, taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development, the first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights beginning in 1982. Five complete Shuttle systems were built and used on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011, the Shuttle fleets total mission time was 1322 days,19 hours,21 minutes and 23 seconds. Shuttle components included the Orbiter Vehicle, a pair of solid rocket boosters. The Shuttle was launched vertically, like a rocket, with the two SRBs operating in parallel with the OVs three main engines, which were fueled from the ET. The SRBs were jettisoned before the vehicle reached orbit, and the ET was jettisoned just before orbit insertion, at the conclusion of the mission, the orbiter fired its OMS to de-orbit and re-enter the atmosphere. The orbiter then glided as a spaceplane to a landing, usually at the Shuttle Landing Facility of KSC or Rogers Dry Lake in Edwards Air Force Base. After landing at Edwards, the orbiter was back to the KSC on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. The first orbiter, Enterprise, was built in 1976 for use in Approach, four fully operational orbiters were initially built, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis. Of these, two were lost in accidents, Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, with a total of fourteen astronauts killed. A fifth operational orbiter, Endeavour, was built in 1991 to replace Challenger, the Space Shuttle was retired from service upon the conclusion of Atlantiss final flight on July 21,2011. Nixons post-Apollo NASA budgeting withdrew support of all components except the Shuttle. The vehicle consisted of a spaceplane for orbit and re-entry, fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks. The first of four orbital test flights occurred in 1981, leading to operational flights beginning in 1982, all launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The system was retired from service in 2011 after 135 missions, the program ended after Atlantis landed at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21,2011. Major missions included launching numerous satellites and interplanetary probes, conducting space science experiments, the first orbiter vehicle, named Enterprise, was built for the initial Approach and Landing Tests phase and lacked engines, heat shielding, and other equipment necessary for orbital flight. A total of five operational orbiters were built, and of these and it was used for orbital space missions by NASA, the US Department of Defense, the European Space Agency, Japan, and Germany. The United States funded Shuttle development and operations except for the Spacelab modules used on D1, sL-J was partially funded by Japan
31.
STS-31
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STS-31 was the thirty-fifth mission of the American Space Shuttle program, which launched the Hubble Space Telescope astronomical observatory into Earth orbit. The mission used the Space Shuttle Discovery, which lifted off from Launch Complex 39B on 24 April 1990 from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Discoverys launch marked the first time since January 1986 that two Space Shuttles had been on the pad at the same time – Discovery on 39B. Initially, this mission was to be flown in August 1986 as STS-61-J using Atlantis, john Young was originally assigned to command this mission, which would have been his seventh spaceflight, but was reassigned to an administrative position and was replaced by Loren Shriver in 1988. STS-31 was launched on 24 April 1990 at 8,33,51 am EDT, a launch attempt on 10 April was scrubbed at T-4 minutes due to a faulty valve in auxiliary power unit number one. The APU was eventually replaced and the Hubble Space Telescopes batteries were recharged, on launch day, the countdown was briefly halted at T-31 seconds when Discoverys computers failed to shut down a fuel valve line on ground support equipment. Engineers ordered the valve closed and the countdown continued, the primary payload was the Hubble Space Telescope, deployed in a 380 statute mile orbit. The shuttles orbit in this mission was its highest orbit up to that date, Discovery orbited the Earth 80 times during the mission. The main purpose of mission was to deploy Hubble. It was designed to operate above the Earths turbulent and obscuring atmosphere to observe celestial objects at ultraviolet, visible, the Hubble mission was a joint NASA-ESA effort going back to the late 1970s. The rest of the mission was devoted to photography and onboard experiments, to launch HST into an orbit that guaranteed longevity, Discovery soared to 600 kilometres. The record height permitted the crew to photograph Earths large-scale geographic features not apparent from lower orbits, motion pictures were recorded by two IMAX cameras, and the results appeared in the IMAX film Destiny in Space. Discovery’s reentry from its higher than usual orbit required a deorbit burn of 4 minutes and 58 seconds, during the deploy of Hubble, one of the observatorys solar arrays stopped as it unfurled. The array eventually came free and unfurled through ground control, while McCandless, Secondary payloads included the IMAX Cargo Bay Camera to document operations outside the crew cabin and a handheld IMAX camera for use inside the orbiter. The mission marked the flight of an 11-pound human skull, which served as the element of Detailed Secondary Objective 469. This joint NASA/DoD experiment was designed to examine the penetration of radiation into the cranium during spaceflight. The female skull was seated in a matrix, representative of tissue. Hundreds of thermo-luminescent dosimeters were mounted in the layers to record radiation levels at multiple depths
32.
Space Shuttle Discovery
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Space Shuttle Discovery is one of the orbiters from NASAs Space Shuttle program and the third of five fully operational orbiters to be built. Its first mission, STS-41-D, flew from August 30 to September 5,1984, over 27 years of service it launched and landed 39 times, gathering more spaceflights than any other spacecraft to date. Discovery became the third operational orbiter to enter service, preceded by Columbia and Challenger. It embarked on its last mission, STS-133, on February 24,2011 and touched down for the time at Kennedy Space Center on March 9. Discovery performed both research and International Space Station assembly missions and it also carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. Discovery was the first operational shuttle to be retired, followed by Endeavour, Discovery launched the Hubble Space Telescope and conducted the second and third Hubble service missions. It also launched the Ulysses probe and three TDRS satellites, project Mercury astronaut John Glenn, who was 77 at the time, flew with Discovery on STS-95 in 1998, making him the oldest person to go into space. Had plans to launch United States Department of Defense payloads from Vandenberg Air Force Base gone ahead and its first West Coast mission, STS-62-A, was scheduled for 1986, but canceled in the aftermath of Challenger. Discovery was retired after completing its mission, STS133 on March 9,2011. The spacecraft is now on display in Virginia at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Discovery weighed 6,870 pounds less than Columbia when it was brought into service due to optimizations determined during the construction and testing of Enterprise, Columbia and Challenger. Beginning in late 1995, the orbiter underwent a nine-month Orbiter Maintenance Down Period in Palmdale and this included outfitting the vehicle with a 5th set of cryogenic tanks and an external airlock to support missions to the International Space Station. After STS-105, Discovery became the first of the fleet to undergo Orbiter Major Modification period at the Kennedy Space Center. Work began in September 2002 to prepare the vehicle for Return to Flight and this included scheduled upgrades and additional safety modifications. Discovery is 6 pounds heavier than Atlantis and 363 pounds heavier than Endeavour, Discovery was decommissioned on March 9,2011. Discovery replaced Enterprise in the Smithsonians display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, Discovery was transported to Washington Dulles International Airport on April 17,2012, and was transferred to the Udvar-Hazy on April 19 where a welcome ceremony was held. Afterwards, at around 5,30 pm, Discovery was rolled to its final stop in the Udvar Hazy Center. By its last mission, Discovery had flown 149 million miles in 39 missions, completed 5,830 orbits, Discovery flew more flights than any other Orbiter Shuttle, including four in 1985 alone. Discovery flew all three return to flight missions after the Challenger and Columbia disasters, STS-26 in 1988, STS-114 in 2005, Discovery flew the ante-penultimate mission of the Space Shuttle program, STS-133, having launched on February 24,2011
33.
Space Shuttle Endeavour
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Space Shuttle Endeavour is a retired orbiter from NASAs Space Shuttle program and the fifth and final operational shuttle built. It embarked on its first mission, STS-49, in May 1992 and its 25th and final mission, STS-134, STS-134 was expected to be the final mission of the Space Shuttle program, but with the authorization of STS-135, Atlantis became the last shuttle to fly. The United States Congress authorized the construction of Endeavour in 1987 to replace Challenger, structural spares built during the construction of Discovery and Atlantis were used in its assembly. NASA chose, on cost grounds, to build Endeavour from spares rather than refitting Enterprise or accepting a Rockwell International proposal to build two shuttles for the price of one. The orbiter is named after the British HMS Endeavour, the ship which took Captain James Cook on his first voyage of discovery and this is why the name is spelled in the British English manner, rather than the American English. This has caused confusion, including when NASA itself misspelled a sign on the pad in 2007. The Space Shuttle carried a piece of the wood from Cook’s ship inside the cockpit. The name also honored Endeavour, the Command Module of Apollo 15, Endeavour was named through a national competition involving students in elementary and secondary schools. Entries included an essay about the name, the story behind it and why it was appropriate for a NASA shuttle, Endeavour was the most popular entry, accounting for almost one-third of the state-level winners. The national winners were Senatobia Middle School in Senatobia, Mississippi, in the division and Tallulah Falls School in Tallulah Falls, Georgia. They were honored at ceremonies in Washington, D. C. including a White House ceremony where then-President George H. W. Bush presented awards to each school. Endeavour was delivered by Rockwell International Space Transportation Systems Division in May 1991 and first launched a year later, in May 1992, Rockwell International claimed that it had made no profit on Space Shuttle Endeavour, despite construction costing US$2.2 billion. On its first mission, it captured and redeployed the stranded INTELSAT VI communications satellite, the first African-American woman astronaut, Mae Jemison, was brought into space on the mission STS-47 on September 12,1992. Endeavour flew the first servicing mission STS-61 for the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993, in 1997 it was withdrawn from service for eight months for a retrofit, including installation of a new airlock. In December 1998, it delivered the Unity Module to the International Space Station, Endeavours last Orbiter Major Modification period began in December 2003 and ended on October 6,2005. Morgan was the backup for Christa McAuliffe who was on the ill-fated mission STS-51-L in 1986, as it was constructed later, Endeavour was built with new hardware designed to improve and expand orbiter capabilities. Most of this equipment was incorporated into the other three orbiters during out-of-service major inspection and modification programs. Endeavour’s upgrades include, A 40-foot diameter drag chute that reduced the orbiters rollout distance by 1,000 to 2,000 feet, the plumbing and electrical connections needed for Extended Duration Orbiter modifications to allow up to a 28-day mission
34.
STS-82
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STS-82 was the 22nd flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery and the 82nd mission of the Space Shuttle program. It was NASAs second mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, during which Discoverys crew repaired and upgraded the telescopes scientific instruments, Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 11 February 1997, returning to Earth on 21 February 1997 at Kennedy Space Center. The first servicing mission was done by Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-61, in addition to installing the new instruments, astronauts replaced other existing hardware with upgrades and spares. Hubble received a refurbished Fine Guidance Sensor, a device used to provide pointing information for the telescope. The Solid State Recorder replaced one of HSTs reel-to-reel tape recorders, the SSR provides much more flexibility than a reel-to-reel recorder and can store ten times more data. One of Hubbles four Reaction Wheel Assemblies -- part of the telescopes Pointing Control Subsystem—was replaced with a refurbished spare, the RWAs use angular momentum to move and maintain the telescope in a desired position. The wheel axes are oriented so that the telescope can provide science with only three wheels operating, if required, STS-82 demonstrated anew the capability of the Space Shuttle to service orbiting spacecraft. Discoverys crew completed servicing and upgrading of the Hubble Space Telescope during four planned EVAs, HST deployed in April 1990 during STS-31. It was designed to undergo periodic servicing and upgrading over its 15-year lifespan, relying on more than 150 tools and crew aids, Lee and Smith performed EVAs 1,3 and 5, with Harbaugh and Tanner performing EVAs 2 and 4. EVA1 began at 11,34 pm EST,13 February, one of Hubbles solar arrays was unexpectedly disturbed by a gust of air from Discoverys airlock when it was depressurized, but was not damaged. STIS expected to shed light on supermassive black holes. NICMOS features more capable infrared detectors and gave astronomers their first clear view of the universe at near infrared wavelengths between 0.8 and 2.5 micrometers, EVA2 began at 10,25 pm,14 February, and lasted seven hours,27 minutes. Harbaugh and Tanner replaced a degraded Fine Guidance Sensor and a failed Engineering, also installed was a new unit called the Optical Control Electronics Enhancement Kit, which further increased the capability of the Fine Guidance Sensor. During this EVA astronauts noted cracking and wear on thermal insulation on the side of HST facing sun, EVA3 began at 9,53 pm,15 February, and lasted seven hours,11 minutes. Also changed out was one of four Reaction Wheel Assembly units that use momentum to move telescope toward a target. After this EVA, mission managers decided to add EVA5 to repair the thermal insulation on HST, EVA4 began at 10,45 pm,16 February, and lasted six hours,34 minutes. Harbaugh and Tanner replaced a Solar Array Drive Electronics package which controls the positioning of Hubbles solar arrays, meanwhile, inside Discovery Horowitz and Lee worked on the middeck to fabricate new insulation blankets for HST. Final space walk, EVA5, lasted five hours,17 minutes, STS-82 EVA total of 33 hours,11 minutes is about two hours shy of total EVA time recorded on first servicing mission
35.
STS-103
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STS-103 was a Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission by Space Shuttle Discovery. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 19 December 1999, STS-103 had four scheduled Extravehicular Activity days where four crew members worked in pairs on alternating days to renew and refurbish the telescope. NASA officials decided to move up part of the mission that had been scheduled for June 2000 after three of the telescopes six gyroscopes failed. Four new gyros were installed during the first servicing mission in December 1993, since then, a gyro failed in 1997, another in 1998 and a third in 1999. The Hubble team believed they understood the cause of the failures, having fewer than three working gyroscopes would have precluded science observations, although the telescope would have remained safely in orbit until a servicing crew arrived. Hubbles gyros spin at a constant rate of 19,200 rpm on gas bearings and this wheel is mounted in a sealed cylinder, which floats in a thick fluid. Electricity is carried to the motor by thin wires and it is believed that oxygen in the pressurized air used during the assembly process caused the wires to corrode and break. The new gyros were assembled using nitrogen instead of oxygen, each gyroscope is packaged in a Rate Sensor assembly. The Rate Sensors are packaged in pairs into an assembly called a Rate Sensor Unit and it is the RSUs that the STS-103s astronauts changed. The RSUs each weigh 11.0 kilograms and are 12.8 by 10.5 by 8.9 inches in size, in addition to replacing all six gyroscopes on the December flight, the crew replaced a Fine Guidance Sensor and the spacecrafts computer. The new computer reduced the burden of flight software maintenance and significantly lowered costs, the new computer was 20 times faster and had six times the memory of the DF-224 computer previously used on Hubble. It weighs 32.0 kilograms and is 18.8 by 18 by 13 inches in size, the FGS installed was a refurbished unit that was returned from Servicing Mission 2. It weighs 217 kilograms and is 5.5 by 4 by 2 feet in size, a voltage/temperature improvement kit was also installed to protect spacecraft batteries from overcharging and overheating when the spacecraft goes into safe mode. The VIK modifies the charge voltage to a lower level to prevent battery overcharging. The VIK weighs about 1.4 kilograms, the repair mission also installed a new S-Band Single Access Transmitter. Hubble has two identical SSATs onboard and can operate only one. The SSATs send data from Hubble through NASAs Tracking Data Relay Satellite System to the ground, the new transmitter replaced one that failed in 1998. The SSAT weighs 3.9 kilograms and is 14 by 8 by 2¾ inches, a spare solid state recorder was also installed to allow efficient handling of high-volume data
36.
STS-109
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STS-109 was a Space Shuttle mission that launched from the Kennedy Space Center on 1 March 2002. It was the 108th mission of the Space Shuttle program, the 27th flight of the orbiter Columbia and it was also the last successful mission of the orbiter Columbia before the ill-fated STS-107 mission, which culminated in the Columbia disaster. The Hubble Space Telescope was placed in orbit during mission STS-31 on 25 April 1990, initially designed to operate for 15 years, plans for periodic service and refurbishment were incorporated into its mission from the start. After the successful completion of the planned service mission by the crew of STS-82 in February 1997. NASA decided to split the third planned service mission into two parts, SM3A and SM3B, a fifth and final servicing mission, STS-125 launched 11 May 2009 The work performed during SM4 is expected to keep HST in operation through 2014. The purpose of STS-109 was to service the Hubble Space Telescope and it was Columbias first flight following an extensive two and a half year modification period. Columbia also reboosted HST to a higher orbit, the STS-109 astronauts performed a total of five spacewalks in five consecutive days to service and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. The spacewalkers received assistance from their crewmates inside Columbia, currie operated the Shuttles robot arm while Altman was her backup. Carey and Altman documented the EVA activities with video and still images, STS-109 accumulated a total of 35 hours,55 minutes of EVA time. Following STS-109, a total of 18 spacewalks had been conducted during four Space Shuttle missions to service Hubble for a total of 129 hours,10 minutes by 14 different astronauts. It was also the last successful flight of Columbia, as on its mission, STS-107, it disintegrated on re-entry. STS-109 is considered a launch, as sunrise was at 6,47 am. Status reports – Detailed NASA status reports for each day of the mission, NASA mission summary STS-109 reentry pictures ESA/Hubble mission summary STS-109 Video Highlights
37.
Space Shuttle Columbia
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Space Shuttle Columbia was the first space-rated orbiter in NASAs Space Shuttle fleet. It launched for the first time on mission STS-1 on April 12,1981, construction began on Columbia in 1975 at Rockwell Internationals principal assembly facility in Palmdale, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. It is also named after the Command Module of Apollo 11, Columbia was also the female symbol of the United States. After construction, the arrived at Kennedy Space Center on March 25,1979. Columbia was originally scheduled to lift off in late 1979, however the date was delayed by problems with both the SSME components, as well as the thermal protection system. On March 19,1981, during preparations for a ground test, workers were asphyxiated while working in Columbias nitrogen-purged aft engine compartment, resulting in two or three fatalities. Columbia spent 610 days in the Orbiter Processing Facility, another 35 days in the Vehicle Assembly Building, Columbia then undertook three further research missions to test its technical characteristics and performance. Its first operational mission, with a crew, was STS-5. At this point Columbia was joined by Challenger, which flew the next three missions, while Columbia underwent modifications for the first Spacelab mission. At that time the fleet was expanded to include Discovery. Columbia returned to space on January 12,1986, with the launch of STS-61-C, the missions crew included Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz, as well as the first sitting member of the House of Representatives to venture into space, Bill Nelson. The next shuttle mission, STS-51-L, was undertaken by Challenger and it was launched on January 28,1986, ten days after STS-61-C had landed, and ended in disaster 73 seconds after launch. In the aftermath NASAs shuttle timetable was disrupted, and Columbia was not flown again until 1989, sTS-93, launched on July 23,1999, was the first U. S. space mission with a female commander, Lt. Col. Eileen Collins. This mission deployed the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Columbias final successful mission was STS-109, the fourth servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope. Its next mission, STS-107, culminated in the loss when it disintegrated during reentry. Consequently, President Bush decided to retire the Shuttle orbiter fleet by 2010 in favor of the Constellation program, the Constellation program was later cancelled with the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 signed by President Obama on October 11. Due to its weight, Columbia could not have used the planned Centaur-G booster, the retention of the internal airlock allowed NASA to use Columbia for the STS-109 Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, along with the Spacehab double module used on STS-107. The upgrade also involved replacing many of the white LRSI tiles on the surfaces with Advanced Flexible Reusable Surface Insulation blankets that had been used on Discovery
38.
Space Shuttle Atlantis
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Space Shuttle Atlantis is a Space Shuttle orbiter belonging to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States. Its maiden flight was STS-51-J from 3 to 7 October 1985, Atlantis embarked on its 33rd and final mission, also the final mission of a space shuttle, STS-135, on 8 July 2011. STS-134 by Endeavour was expected to be the flight before STS-135 was authorized in October 2010. STS-135 took advantage of the processing for the STS-335 Launch On Need mission that would have been necessary if STS-134s crew became stranded in orbit, Atlantis landed for the final time at the Kennedy Space Center on 21 July 2011. By the end of its mission, Atlantis had orbited the Earth a total of 4,848 times. Atlantis is named after RV Atlantis, a sailing ship that operated as the primary research vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 1930 to 1966. Weight,151,315 pounds Length,122.17 feet Height,56.58 feet Wingspan,78.06 feet Atlantis was completed in half the time it took to build Space Shuttle Columbia. When it rolled out of the Palmdale assembly plant, weighing 151,315 lb, Atlantis is the lightest shuttle of the remaining fleet, weighing three pounds less than the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off on its voyage on 3 October 1985, on mission STS-51-J. It flew one mission, STS-61-B, the second night launch in the shuttle program. Atlantis was then used for ten flights between 1988 and 1992, two of these, both flown in 1989, deployed the planetary probes Magellan to Venus and Galileo to Jupiter. With STS-30 Atlantis became the first shuttle to launch an interplanetary probe, during another mission, STS-37 flown in 1991, Atlantis deployed the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Beginning in 1995 with STS-71, Atlantis made seven flights to the former Russian space station Mir as part of the Shuttle-Mir Program. When linked, Atlantis and Mir together formed the largest spacecraft in orbit at the time, Shuttle Atlantis also delivered several vital components for the construction of the International Space Station. During the February 2001 mission STS-98 to the ISS, Atlantis delivered the Destiny Module, the five hour 25 minute third spacewalk performed by astronauts Robert Curbeam and Thomas Jones during STS-98 marked NASAs 100th extra vehicular activity in space. The Quest Joint Airlock, was flown and installed to the ISS by Atlantis during the mission STS-104 in July 2001. The successful installation of the airlock gave on-board space station crews the ability to stage repair, the first mission flown by Atlantis after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster was STS-115, conducted during September 2006. The mission carried the P3/P4 truss segments and solar arrays to the ISS, on ISS assembly flight STS-122 in February 2008, Atlantis delivered the Columbus laboratory to the ISS
39.
Hubble Deep Field
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The Hubble Deep Field is an image of a small region in the constellation Ursa Major, constructed from a series of observations by the Hubble Space Telescope. It covers an area about 2.6 arcminutes on a side, about one 24-millionth of the whole sky, which is equivalent in angular size to a tennis ball at a distance of 100 metres. The image was assembled from 342 separate exposures taken with the Space Telescopes Wide Field, by revealing such large numbers of very young galaxies, the HDF has become a landmark image in the study of the early universe. Three years after the HDF observations were taken, a region in the celestial hemisphere was imaged in a similar way. The similarities between the two regions strengthened the belief that the universe is uniform over large scales and that the Earth occupies a region in the Universe. A wider but shallower survey was made as part of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey. In 2004 a deeper image, known as the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, was constructed from a few months of light exposure. The HUDF image was at the time the most sensitive astronomical image ever made at visible wavelengths, the Medium Deep Survey used the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 to take deep images of random fields while other instruments were being used for scheduled observations. At the same time, other dedicated programs focused on galaxies that were known through ground-based observation. All of these studies revealed substantial differences between the properties of galaxies today and those that existed several years ago. Up to 10% of the HSTs observation time is designated as Directors Discretionary Time, a special Institute Advisory Committee recommended that the WFPC2 be used to image a typical patch of sky at a high galactic latitude, using several optical filters. A working group was set up to develop and implement the project, the field selected for the observations needed to fulfill several criteria. It had to be at a high latitude, because dust. These criteria restricted the field of potential target areas and it was decided that the target should be in Hubbles continuous viewing zones —the areas of sky which are not occulted by the Earth or the moon during Hubbles orbit. Twenty fields satisfying these criteria were identified, from which three optimal candidate fields were selected, all within the constellation of Ursa Major. The field that was selected is located at a right ascension of 12h 36m 49. 4s. The area is approximately 1/28,000,000 of the area of the sky. Once a field had been selected, a strategy had to be developed
40.
Hubble Deep Field South
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The Hubble Deep Field South is a composite of several hundred individual images taken using the Hubble Space Telescopes Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 over 10 days in September and October 1998. It followed the success of the original Hubble Deep Field in facilitating the study of extremely distant galaxies in early stages of their evolution. While the WFPC2 took very deep optical images, nearby fields were simultaneously imaged by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, the field chosen was in the constellation of Tucana at a right ascension of 22h 32m 56. 22s and declination of −60° 33′02. 69″. However the field is closer to the plane than the HDF-N. It also has a bright star, as well as a moderately strong radio source close by. As with the HDF-N, the lies in Hubbles Continuous Viewing Zone. At specific times of year, the HST can observe this zone continuously, the survey again used Directors Discretionary Time. The observing strategy for the HDF-S was similar to that of the HDF-N, with the same optical filters used for the WFPC2 images, and similar total exposure times. The observations were made over 10 days in September and October 1998, a total of 150 orbits, while the WFPC2 took very deep optical images, the fields were simultaneously imaged by the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer. A number of flanking fields were observed for shorter periods of time. The WFPC2 image is 5.3 square arcminutes, whilst the NICMOS, the HDF-S final image had a pixel scale of 0.0398 arcseconds. The cosmological principle states that at the largest scales, the universe is homogeneous and isotropic, one difference with the HDF-N was that the HDF-S included a known quasar with a redshift value of 2.24, J2233-606, discovered during the search for the target field. The quasar provides a probe of the gas along the line of sight where the objects are also observed. For the Southern field, however, such a skewed count wasnt a concern due to the counts from the HDF-N. As with the HDF-N, the HDF-S provided rich pickings for cosmologists, many studies of the HDF-S confirmed results found from the HDF-N, such as star formation rates over the lifetime of the universe. The HDF-S was also used in studies of how galaxies evolve over time. At mid-infrared it was observed by the Infrared Space Observatory, main Hubble Deep Field South website
41.
Hubble Ultra-Deep Field
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The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field is an image of a small region of space in the constellation Fornax, containing an estimated 10,000 galaxies. It is composited from Hubble Space Telescope data accumulated over a period from September 24,2003, looking back approximately 13 billion years it has been used to search for galaxies that existed at that time. The HUDF image was taken in a section of the sky with a low density of stars in the near-field, allowing much better viewing of dimmer. In August and September 2009, the Hubbles Deep Field was expanded using the channel of the recently attached Wide Field Camera 3. When combined with existing HUDF data, astronomers were able to identify a new list of very distant galaxies. Located southwest of Orion in the southern-hemisphere constellation Fornax, the image is 2.4 arcminutes to an edge. The image is oriented so that the left corner points toward north on the celestial sphere. On September 25,2012, NASA released a further refined version of the Ultra-Deep Field dubbed the eXtreme Deep Field. The XDF reveals galaxies that span back 13.2 billion years in time, on June 3,2014, NASA released the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field image composed of, for the first time, the full range of ultraviolet to near-infrared light. In the years since the original Hubble Deep Field, the Hubble Deep Field South, a workshop on how to best carry out surveys with the ACS was held at STScI in late 2002. At the workshop Massimo Stiavelli advocated an Ultra Deep Field as a way to study the objects responsible for the reionization of the Universe, unlike the Deep Fields, the HUDF does not lie in Hubbles Continuous Viewing Zone. As with the fields, this one was required to contain very little emission from our galaxy, with little Zodiacal dust.8 galaxy. The coordinates of the field are right ascension 3h 32m 39. 0s, the field is 200 arcseconds to a side, with a total area of 11 square arcminutes, and lies in the constellation of Fornax. Four filters were used on the ACS, centered on 435,606,775 and 850 nm and these wavelength ranges match those used by the GOODS sample, allowing direct comparison between the two. As with the Deep Fields, the HUDF used Directors Discretionary Time, the observations were done in two sessions, from September 23 to October 28,2003, and December 4,2003, to January 15,2004. The total exposure time is just under 1 million seconds, from 400 orbits, in total,800 ACS exposures were taken over the course of 11.3 days,2 every orbit, and NICMOS observed for 4.5 days. To observe the sky to the same sensitivity, the HST would need to observe continuously for a million years. The sensitivity of the ACS limits its capability of detecting galaxies at high redshift to about 6
42.
Extended Groth Strip
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The Extended Groth Strip is an image of a small region between the constellations of Ursa Major and Boötes, based on the results of a series of observations by the Hubble Space Telescope. It covers an area 70 arcminutes across and 10 arcminutes wide, the complete image at the highest resolution in JPEG format is nearly 250 megabytes. The Extended Groth Strip is named for Princeton University physicist Edward Groth, there are at least 50,000 galaxies in its view, giving new clues about the universes youth, from its pre-teen years to young adulthood. The snowstorm of galaxies in the Hubble panorama does not appear evenly spread out, some galaxies seem to be grouped together. This uneven distribution of galaxies traces the concentration of dark matter, galaxies form in areas rich in dark matter. The Extended Groth Strip is being studied in depth as part of the All-Wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey, list of Deep Fields AEGIS - All-wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey, of which this a part Information and high resolution images on the Hubble site
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