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NASA
Press Release
NASA's
Hubble Space Telescope is back in business, as made dramatically
evident in stunning new celestial pictures of remote galaxies
and a colorful dying star released today.
The
images were taken January 10 - 13, 2000, as part of the activities
to recommission the earth-orbiting telescope.
The
pictures are a culmination of the successful Space Shuttle
servicing mission (STS-103) last December, which restored
NASA's premier optical space observatory to full capability
beefed-up with new electronics and critically needed replacement
gyroscopes. Hubble has now resumed probing the Universe's
many mysteries with a crystal-clear view.
"Thanks
to the great work by the astronauts, Hubble is better than
new," said Dr. Ed Weiler, NASA Associate Administrator for
Space Science. "I think there is no better proof than these
pictures that NASA's capability to send humans into space
to work on Hubble has had a vital role in space science and
the renaissance in astronomy we're now seeing."
"After
a two-month hiatus, it is a tremendous boost to all of astronomy
to see Hubble back in action. NASA has restored the observatory
to a condition that was better than it was even before the
fourth gyroscope failed," said Steven Beckwith, director of
the Space Telescope Science Institute, the Hubble science
operations center in Baltimore, MD.
To
verify the telescope's refurbishment, astronomers resumed
operations by aiming it at two scientifically intriguing and
photogenic celestial targets. One object is an intricate structure
of shells and streamers of gas around a dying sun-like star
5,000 light-years away.
Designated
NGC 2392, it is dubbed the "Eskimo
Nebula" because, as seen through ground-based telescopes,
it resembles a face inside a furry parka. In Hubble's sharp
view, the "furry" features resemble giant comets all pointing
away from the central star, like the spokes of a wheel. "The
clumps that form the comet heads all seem to be located at
a similar distance from the star.
This
fact will be important in developing a theory of why the clumps
formed in the first place," said planetary nebula expert J.
Patrick Harrington of the University of Maryland, College
Park, MD. He adds, "Of all the planetary nebulae imaged by
the Hubble Space Telescope, this new image is unsurpassed
in subtle beauty."
A
second target is a massive cluster of galaxies called Abell
2218, which acts like a giant zoom lens in space. The
gravitational field of the cluster magnifies the light of
more distant galaxies far behind it, providing a deep probe
of the very distant universe. The cluster was imaged in full
color, providing astronomers with a spectacular and unique
new view of the early universe.
"For
the first time we can view the internal color structure of
some very distant galaxies. This gives us new insight into
details of what young galaxies are like," says Professor Richard
Ellis at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
and a co-investigator on the original (black-and-white) Hubble
image of Abell 2218 taken in 1994. "The color of a distant
source is preserved by gravitational lensing. By matching
images of the same color, families of multiple images produced
by the lensing process can be identified."
Andrew
Fruchter, leader of the team who took the early release observations
is particularly fascinated by an unusual red feature in the
field. "This extraordinary object has colors which indicate
it is one of two things, either a rare, extremely cool dwarf
star in our own galaxy, or one of the most distant objects
ever viewed by Hubble lensed into visibility by the mass of
the cluster," says Fruchter. Further observations will be
needed to confirm the identity of this unusual object.
Spacecraft
operators report that all the new equipment installed on the
telescope in December is working perfectly, including the
new computer, solid state recorder, and fine guidance sensor.
In particular the new gyroscopes are allowing Hubble to reliably
point with exquisite precision at celestial objects.
Two
key science instruments, the Wide Field and Planetary Camera
2 and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, are now being
used for routine science observations by astronomers worldwide
to probe everything from planets, to black holes, to far flung
galaxies.
The
Space Telescope Science Institute
is operated by the Association of Universities for Research
in Astronomy, Inc. for NASA, under contract with NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope
is a project of international cooperation between NASA and
the European Space Agency.
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