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The Hubble Mission:

The Hubble Mission:. Past and Future. With thanks to NASA for images!. The most famous?. Creating the Hubble Space Telescope. 1918 – Astronomers Hubble and Slipher measure distances and velocities of galaxies. Pioneered the idea of other galaxies and an expanding universe

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The Hubble Mission:

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  1. The Hubble Mission: Past and Future With thanks to NASA for images!

  2. The most famous?

  3. Creating the Hubble Space Telescope • 1918 – Astronomers Hubble and Slipher measure distances and velocities of galaxies. • Pioneered the idea of other galaxies and an expanding universe • 1923 – German scientist Hermann Oberth suggests the idea of launching a telescope into space • 1945 – Astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer proposes an orbiting space observatory

  4. Creating the Hubble Space Telescope • 1977 – Congress approves funding for a space telescope • 1981 – Creation of the STScI • mid-1980s – Telescope named after astronomer Edwin Hubble • Created Hubble’s Law, proposed expansion of the universe • 1990 – Hubble is launched • Cost at launch: $1.5 billion

  5. What Does it Do? • Since 1993, Hubble has:* • taken over 330,000 separate observations • observed more than 25,000 targets • gathered > 7.3 terabytes of data • traveled 1.489 billion miles • provided data for over 2,663 scientific papers Orbits 600 km (375 mi) above the Earth *according to the NASA website

  6. Precision pointing control system Checks for movement 40 times a second, and slowly adjust the gyro speeds to stabilize pointing Primary mirror 2.4 m Secondary 0.3 m Ultra-low expansion glass COSTAR corrects spherical aberration Before After Active Galactic Nucleus Specifications

  7. The Great Comet Crash Extrasolar Planets Death Throes Cosmic Birthing Galactic Archaeology Supermassive Black Holes The Largest Explosions The Edge of Space The Age of the Universe The Accelerating Universe 17 Years of Hubble: Top 10 Discoveries Mario Livio Scientific American (2006)

  8. The Great Comet Crash The propagation of waves outward from the impact site suggests Jupiter is oxygen-rich. Is it?

  9. Extrasolar Planets • A transiting planet • 30% lighter than Jupiter • 30% larger in diameter • Bloated by the heat of its nearby sun? • P=3.5d, 0.05 AU • 1580 F! • No rings or massive moons • Atmosphere contains Na, C, and O • Evaporating hydrogen gives a comet-like tail

  10. Births of Stars Eagle Nebula M16 • Interstellar gas surrounds young stars about to emerge • 7,000 light years • One of the top ten Hubble images

  11. Natal Disks and Jets

  12. Star Birth Cluster • The Lynx Arc • Biggest, brightest, hottest star forming region ever seen • 12 billion light years away • Stars as hot as 140,000 K • >1,000,000 hot, massive, blue-white stars (Orion has only 4!) • Seen through a gravitational lens

  13. Death Throes I – SN 1987a • February 23, 1987 • Large Magellanic Cloud • The rings are a remnant of gas ejected by the star a few tens of thousands of years ago • 1987 was a star with an initial mass of about 18 x the Sun’s mass • by the time it exploded, it was down to about 12 x the Sun’s mass because of mass loss

  14. Crab Pulsar • Combining Hubble and Chandra Observatory data • Matter and antimatter are being accelerated to near the speed of light by the pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron star

  15. Death Throes II – The Death of Sun-like Stars • Planetary nebula form when stars eject their outer envelops into space, revealing the hot dense core at the center of the star • Radiation from the exposed hot core heats the escaping gas until it glows • The beautiful shapes are thought to be caused by interactions with companion stars

  16. Stellar Archaeology • Finding the faintest stars in the globular cluster NGC 6397 • White dwarfs and red dwarfs • 8500 LY distant

  17. Ancient Star Cluster M80 = NGC 6093 • One of the densest star clusters in the Milky Way • About 28,000 light years • Held together by mutual gravity • Stars are basically the same age, but have different masses • Red giants, blue helium-burning stars

  18. Supermassive Black Holes

  19. The Largest Explosions • A gamma-ray burst detected on 21 November 2001 by satellite • Hubble followed the fading optical counterpart from Dec. 4, 2001, to May 5, 2002 • At least some of the mysterious cosmic gamma-ray bursts are produced in the violent event which ends the lives of massive stars • These stars end in rapidly spinning black holes • Other types of gamma ray bursts may arise from the merger of two neutron stars

  20. The Edge of Space The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field The deepest optical sky image ever taken: Faint red smudges may well be members of the first class of galaxies formed when the universe was only a few percent of its present age. These faint galaxies are dwarf galaxies from which larger modern galaxies must have formed.

  21. The Age of the Universe • NGC 4603’s distance is determined from 36 Cepheid variables • The period of pulsation of the Cepheids is related to their brightness, and allows a measurement of the distance – 108 million light years • Observations like these tell us the Hubble Constant, the relation between the distances to galaxies and their recession velocities. • A Hubble Constant of 70 km s-1 Mpc-1 means a galaxy should appear to recede 160,000 miles per hour faster for every 3.3 million light-year increase in distance • Measuring the Hubble Constant was a major goal for Hubble

  22. Brightness measurements of distant, ancient supernovae indicate that expansion of the universe began to speed up four to six billion years ago, when the Dark Energy's repulsive force began to overcome the attractive force of gravity over cosmic distances • Supernovae measured with Hubble hint that Dark Energy's repulsive force is constant over cosmic time and so could be consistent with Einstein's original theory of gravitation • If the force actually changes with time, the Universe could still end in a Big Crunch or a Big Rip ... but not for at least an estimated 30 billion years The Accelerating Universe

  23. Other Hubble Contributions • Scientific Productivity – 7% of astronomy papers world-wide are from Hubble • The Hubble Archive – Half of the science papers each year from Hubble utilize archive data rather than new observations • Hubble Legacy Program • Education and Public Outreach

  24. Hubble Deep Field • RA 12h 36m 49s DEC +62d 13' (J2000) • about 1’ square (1/30 of full Moon) • 150 orbits • Key Science Results • Small Galaxies in the Early Universe • Open versus Closed Universe • Disturbed Galaxies • Stellar Baby Boom • In Search of Hidden Stars • Missing Mass -- Still Missing DSS Image:

  25. Hubble Today – Crippled, but Still Productive • Problems • Two instruments failed • STIS • ACS • Batteries failing • Gyros failing (operating with two) • Still working instruments • FGS • WFPC2 • NICMOS

  26. Working Instruments - NICMOS • Near Infrared Camera and Multi Object Spectometer (0.8-2.5 microns) • imaging capabilities in broad, medium, and narrow band filters • broad-band imaging polarimetry • coronographic imaging • slitless grism spectroscopy • Installed in 1997

  27. Working Instruments - WFPC2 • Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 • High resolution images • wide field of view • 1150 to 11,000 Å • 3 800x800 pixel CCDs + PC • 2.5’ x 2.5’ • Installed 1993, optics to correct…

  28. Working Instruments - FGS • Part of the HST Pointing Control System (PCS) • Provides precision astrometry • Milli-arc second resolution over a wide range of magnitudes (3 < V < 16.8) • Parallax and proper motion of astrometric targets to a precision of 0.2 mas • Detect duplicity or structure around targets as close as 8 mas • Visual orbits can be determined for binaries as close as 12 mas • Effectiveness limited by 2-gyro operation

  29. Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph • Installed in 1997 • Spectra and images at ultraviolet and visible wavelengths, probing the Universe from our solar system out to cosmological distances • STIS stopped science operations in August 2004 due to a failed power supply • Possible repair during Servicing Mission 4

  30. Advanced Camera for Surveys • Wide Field Channel (WFC) with a field of view of 202x202 square arcsec covering the range from 3700 to 11000 Å and a plate-scale of 0.05 arcsec/pixel • a High Resolution Channel (HRC), with a field of view of 26x29 square arcsec covering the range from 2000 to 11000 Å and a plate-scale of 0.027 arcsec/pixel • a Solar Blind Channel (SBC), with a field of view of 31x35 square arcsec, spanning the range from 1150 to 1700 Å and a plate-scale of 0.032 arcsec/pixel

  31. Servicing Hubble • Servicing Mission 1 – December 1993 • Installation of WFPC2 and COSTAR (Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement) • Service Mission 2 – February 1997 • new instruments - NICMOS and STIS • Servicing Mission 3a – November 1999 • new gyros! (+ other infrastructure) • Servicing Mission 3b – March 2002 • New camera (ACS), restored NICMOS

  32. Servicing Mission 4 • Scheduled for 9/11/2008 • What will be done? • Install new instruments • Cosmic Origins Spectrograph • Wide Field Camera 3 • Repair STIS and/or ACS • Refurbish Fine Guidance Sensor 3 • Gyros, batteries, thermal blankets • Extend Hubble’s operating life to 2013

  33. Servicing Mission 4

  34. Cosmic Origins Spectrograph • Ultraviolet spectrograph • Trace the large-scale structure of the Universe • Trace the composition of gas in distant galaxies

  35. WFPC3 • Star formation histories of nearby galaxies • Probing dark energy • Near UV through optical to near IR

  36. Infrastructure Refurbishment • FGS • Two are currently degrading • One will be replaced • Gyroscopes • Hubble designed to use three of six • Four are currently working, two in use • Six new gyros will last until 2013 • Batteries • Original batteries to be replaced to restore power margins • New Thermal Blanket (original degraded over time)

  37. Instrument Repairs • STIS • replace an electronics board • best effort basis – too many screws! • ACS – Still not certain what to fix • Cause of electrical short? • Any collateral damage? • Concepts for repair? • How much EVA time needed? • What else couldn’t be done if ACS is fixed?

  38. After 2013? The James Webb Space Telescope

  39. JWST Specs • 6.2 meter primary • Observations from 0.6 – 28 microns

  40. JWST to be stationed at L2 • Infrared observations from faint and very distant objects • The telescope and its instruments must be very cold (T < 50 K (-370 deg F)) • A large shield blocks the light from the Sun, Earth, and Moon, which otherwise would heat up the telescope, and interfere with the observations • Must keep Sun, Earth, and Moon in the same direction, behind the heat shield

  41. WHY JWST? • First Light - JWST will try to confirm theories about the early universe by finding and studying the "first light" objects. • Assembly of Galaxies - JWST will observe the small, early building blocks of galaxies in order to understand how they grow and evolve. • Birth of Stars and Protoplanetary Systems -JWST will examine the birth and early evolution of stars and their planetary systems. • Planetary Systems and the Origins of Life -JWST will investigate the physical and chemical properties of planetary systems — including our own — and try to determine the potential for the origins of life in those systems.  

  42. Sources: www.hubblesite.org www.stsci.edu/hst hubble.nasa.gov www.jwst.nasa.gov IU Astronomy listserve: email to astdept@indiana.edu

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