Hubble space telescope turns 20

The Hubble Space Telescope celebrates its 20th anniversary Saturday and NASA has released a new photograph from the orbiting observatory of a cosmic pillar of gas and dust piled high in the Carina Nebula galaxy.

The Hubble Space Telescope celebrates its 20th anniversary Saturday and NASA has released a new photograph from the orbiting observatory of a cosmic pillar of gas and dust piled high in the Carina Nebula galaxy.

Three light-year-tall towers of cool hydrogen laced with dust rise from the wall of the nebula, the US space agency said, in a scene that is reminiscent of Hubble’s classic “Pillars of Creation” photograph from 1995.

Hubble, named after the astronomer Edwin P Hubble (1889—1953), was launched into low—Earth orbit on April 24, 1990.

Since then, it has been sending back some of the most spectacular images of galaxies - helping scientists to place the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years, learn that black holes are at the centre of most galaxies, monitor planetary formation and discover that the universe is expanding at an ever-faster pace.

To date, Hubble has looked at over 30,000 celestial objects and amassed over a half million pictures in its archive.

In May, a revamped Hubble provided colourful images and crisper pictures of distant stars and galaxies after a servicing mission that installed new instruments and repaired broken ones that had hampered the world’s most famous telescope.

Despite its storied past, Hubble had looked set for the junk heap until the space shuttle Atlantis’ repair mission that sought to extend the telescope’s life until at least 2014, and possibly beyond.

NASA had originally decided against the maintenance mission because of the risks involved and pressures to complete International Space Station construction by the end of 2010, when the shuttle is to be retired.

But US politicians and world astronomers fought to keep alive the instrument that has expanded knowledge of space.

“Most of us humans ... will never travel physically to some of the exotic places that we see in Hubble,” said Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator, earlier this year. “What Hubble has done is enabled our hearts, our minds, our spirits to travel throughout the solar system even billions of light years to the very beginning of time.” Hubble fans worldwide are being invited to share the ways the telescope has affected them — they can visit the “Messages to Hubble” page on http://hubblesite.org. The messages will be stored in the Hubble data archive along with the telescope’s many terabytes of science data.

Nasa:Space Shuttle Can Fly Beyond 2010, If Money is There

WASHINGTON : The US space shuttle fleet can continue flying beyond Nasa’s September 30 deadline if the money is made available to keep it going, a US space agency official told reporters on Tuesday.
“I think the real issue that the agency and the nation has to address is the expense,” said Space Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon, noting the shuttle fleet costs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 200 million dollars per month to maintain it in working condition.
“Where that money comes from is the big question,” he added.
Shannon’s briefing was about Nasa’s April 5 Discovery mission to the orbiting International Space Station (ISS), one of three shuttle flights remaining before the program is shut down at the end of September after 29 years of service.
Several lawmakers have recently urged the shuttle program be extended to reduce US dependency on Russia’s Soyuz spacecrafts in order to continue building the ISS until the shuttle’s successor can take off by 2015 at the earliest.
Taking up her colleagues’ concerns, Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison last week presented a bill calling for extending the shuttle program beyond its termination deadline.
On presenting his 2011 budget plan in January, US President Barack Obama confirmed the shuttle fleet’s demise this year, as well as dropping the Constellation program his predecessor George W. Bush announced in 2004 to return Americans to the moon by 2020.
Constellation included the development of the Ares 1 rocket, and its abandonment has also put into question the feasibility of the shuttle’s successor spacecraft.
Obama also asked Nasa to partner with the private sector, using funds from an economic stimulus package to develop low-cost, primary services transporting astronauts to the ISS.

موسم خراب نئی دوربین روانہ نہیں ہوسکی

امریکی خلائی ادارہ ناسا سورج اور اس کے پیچیدہ دائرہ عمل کے بارے میں تفصیلی معلومات حاصل کرنے کے لیے نئی دوربین کا خلائی سفر تیز ہواؤں کے باعث ملتوی ہوگیا ہے۔

دوربین بدھ کوگرینیچ کے معیاری وقت کے مطابق سہ پہر تین بجے کے قریب اپنے سفر پر روانہ ہونے والی تھی۔ نئے اوقات کا ابھی اعلان نہیں کیا گیا۔

خلائی دوربین سٹیشن یا آبزرویٹری پانچ برس تک خلا میں رہے گی۔ یہ سٹیشن چوبیس گھنٹے میں زمین کے گرد اپنا چکر مکمل کرے گا اور اس دوران تصاویر ناسا کو بھیجتا رہے گا جن کی مدد سے سائنسدانوں کو سورج کے گرد معمولی سے معمولی تفصیل کا پتہ چل سکے۔

سائنسدانوں کا کہنا ہے کہ وہ یہ جاننے کی کوشش کریں گے کہ سورج پر رونما ہونے والی تبدیلیاں ہمارے نظام شمسی میں درجۂ حرارت اور توانائی کی سطحوں پر کیسے اثر انداز ہوتی ہیں۔ یہ تبدیلیاں جنھیں سائنسدان ’سپیس ویدر‘ کہتے ہیں کرۂ ارض کے مواصلات اور سیاروں کے سگنل اور توانائی فراہم کرنے والی لائنوں میں خلل ڈال سکتی ہیں۔