Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble Space Telescope to Observe night sky objects from the Space

     Hubble Space Telescope is a American (National Aeronautics Space Administration) space telescope launched into space to observe night sky objects which are invisible from our Earth telescopes. The most largest and versatile among all telescopes is Hubble Space Telescope. Nowadays Hubble plays a major role and a powerful scientific tool for Astronomers in the field of Research and discoveries. Since its launch from 1990 it had made millions of discoveries like Galaxies, Stars, Dual Stars, Gas Nebulae, Exoplanets, Comets, Star clusters, Supernovas, Active Black Holes producing a good quality and high resolution images on computer screen. It helps astronomers to understand the phenomenon and evolution of universe easily.

TELESCOPE IN SPACE:

     On 24th April 1990 NASA's Hubble Space Telescope was parked into Low Earth orbit, which was carried by Space Shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Center of Florida. It took Eight years to construct and complete the Hubble project starting from 1977 to 1985. Hubble was named in the honour of a famous Astronomer Edwin Hubble.

PROPERTIES OF TELESCOPE:

     The telescope basically consist of a mirror reflector of 2.4 meter and imaging instrument which will give astronomers a clear and magnificent view of Universe with greater resolution in the presence of visible, infrared and ultraviolet light. It orbits Earth at a distance of 568 kilometers from Earth.The total cost to complete the Hubble project was $1.5 billion dollars. It has mind-blowing feature to image (Deep Field Image) the sky objects to a distance of 13 billion light years away from our Earth which is impossible to imagine and image through ground based telescopes. 

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE'S INTERESTING FACTS:

•  Hubble Astronomers have published nearly 14,000 scientific papers after 1.3 million observations since its year of launch1990.
• Hubble uses Spinning wheels to change its position by applying Newton's Thrid Law instead of using thrusters
• Hubble has an accuracy point of 0.007 arc seconds and can see objects with an angular size of 0.05 arc seconds.
• It can image and locate objects to a far of more than 13.4 billion light years away from our Earth.
• It had archived more than 140 Terabytes of data by generating 10 Terabytes of New data per year.

 TECHNICAL DETAILS:

• Hubble Telescope has 1.25 MHz DF-224 Processor CPU, it intel based 80486 processor.
• It has Multiple Access Transponder components MAT-1 and MAT-2
• The wide-field camera uses RCA 1802 microprocessor.

INITIAL INSTRUMENTS:

• Planetary Camera
• Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph
• High Speed Photometer
• Faint Object Camera
• Faint Object Spectrograph

HUBBLE INSTRUMENTS:

• Advanced Camera for Surveys
• Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
• Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement
• Faint Object Camera
• Faint Object Spectrograph
• Fine Guidance Sensor
• Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph
• High Speed Photometer
• Near Infrared Camera
• Multiple-Object Spectrometer
• Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph
• Wide Field and Planetary Camera
• Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2
• Wide Field Camera 3

SERVICING MISSIONS:

• Servicing Mission-1 - STS-61 December 1993
• Seven Astronaut in Endeavour replaced High Speed Photometer with COSTAR
• Wide Field Planetary Camera was replaced with Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2
• Solar arrays and electronic components was replaced
• Four Gyroscopes was also replaced and the onboard computers were upgraded to coprocessors  

•  Servicing Mission-2 - STS-82 February 1997
• STIS and NICMOS was replaced and a New Solid State Recorder was mounted

• Servicing Mission-3A - STS-103 December 1999
• Four new gyroscopes were replaced with Fine Guidance Sensor and new computer systems were upgraded with more memory.
• Voltage/Temperature Improvement Kit was replaced with Thermal Insulation Blankets.

• Servicing Mission-3B - STS-109 March 2002
• Fine Guidance Sensors was replaced by the Advanced Camera for Surveys
• Solar panels was replaced for the second time for more power

• Servicing Mission-4 - STS-125 May 2009
•  New Nickel-Hydrogen Battery was installed and also Wide Field Camera 3 and Cosmic Origins Spectrograph

DISCOVERIES:

Eagle Nebulae Image Captured in 2014

Hubble Studies New Frontier's Program

Pismis 24 Star Cluster

Carina Nebulae

 

Hubble Detecting Early Universe with Various Space Telescope and Ground based telescope

FURTHER REFERENCES:

• Hubble Essentials
• Nuts and Bolts
• Hubble Highlights
• Hubble Wesite 

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Niagara-Falls of Mars

 Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance orbiter image shows the signs of flowing lava which looks like Niagara Falls. This lava flows from north-east. This lava flows from a 30 kilometer diameter volcano located in the Theresis volcanic province. 

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Mangalyaan Completes 1000 Days in Orbit

Mangalyaan Spacecraft around Mars

     Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), Mangalyaan - the first successful interplanetary mission of India was launched on 5 November 2013 and it was carried by Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C25). It was successfully inserted into Martian orbit on 24 September 2014 in its first attempt. Mangalyaan completes 1000 Earth days in its orbit on 19 June 2017. 1000 Earth days is equal to 973.24 Martian Solar days and completed 388 orbits around Mars.

ISRO has announced opportunity for the researchers to use data of Mangalyaan for research and analysis. First year data of Mars Orbiter Mission was released on 24 September 2016 through ISSDC Website. This website has 1381 registered users and 370 GB data has been downloaded by users. Mars Colour Camera (MCC) one of the onboard payloads has produced 715 images and Mars Atlas was prepared and made available on ISRO official website.

Downloads:

•  Mars Atlas prepared by Mars Colour Camera (MCC)
• Download MOM data by Registering on ISSDC website

Image Credit : Indian Space Research Organisation
Text Credit    :  ISRO 

Tags: Mangalyaan New Updates 2017 Video | Mangalyaan 2 Proposal ISRO Video | Mangalyaan-India on Mars Video | MOM Payload - Mars Colour Camera

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Starbursts in Virgo Constellation

     Nowadays formation and evolution of galaxies are still not understood properly, this galaxies are called Starburst Galaxy. 

What is starburst Galaxy?

     Starburst galaxy have a region where most of the stars form at a breakneck rate and the galaxy is eating up the regular supply at a faster rate, that can be replenished.

Which galaxy is suitable for this type of Galaxy?

     NGC 4536 is such type of galaxy captured in the above image by Wide Field Camera of Hubble Space Telescope. It is located about 50 million light years away from Earth in the Constellation Virgo. It is a hub of extreme star formation. 

How the gases give birth to a new star?

     There are several factors that lead to ideal environment in which star formation can happen at a faster rate with massive and regular supply of gas. Galaxies having lots of gases passes nearby and collide with huge forces. This force forces the gases into a relatively small place to give birth to a new star.

Can the birth of star is predictable?

    Yes, the birth of star is predicatable. Star formation leaves many fingerprints. Nowadays Astronomers were able to predict where are the gas rich galaxies? where the star will born? Life span of stars? Technology development made easy to predict many astronomical events in our dark universe.

NGC 4536 Galaxy's Star-neck region.    Image Credit: Hubble, NASA, ESA

 Tags: Galaxy Cluster, Kepler Catalog, Colored Clouds of Jupiter, Top 10 Discoveries of MAVEN at Mars, Energetic Black Holes, Magellanic Nebulae, Spirograph-Spiral Gas Nebulae.

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Hubble to Capture galaxy with Gravitational Lens

Hubble Space Telescope shows fast-spinning disk shaped galaxy

     Hubble Space Telescope uses Gravitational Lens to Capture fast spinning Disk Galaxy. Gravity of a massive galaxy cluster MACS J2129-0741 brightens and magnifies the far distant galaxy in the background galaxy MACS2129-1 in the upper right corner of the image. Astronomers of NASA have made a amazing discovery of fast spinning disk shaped galaxy using power of natural lens of Hubble Space Telescope. These galaxy were called dead galaxies. Because they stopped forming stars before few billion years ago.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA

Tags:  Spirograph IC418 Nebulae, Energetic Black Holes, R-136 Cluster of Magellanic Nebulae

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New Catalog of Exoplanets by Kepler Space Telescope

     Team of NASA's Kepler Space Telescope team has released a catalog containing 219 new planets, 10 of which are Earth seized orbiting the star in the habitable zone.This is a detailed catalog containing many exoplanets outside our solar system. It is also a final spacecraft view of constellation Cygnus.

NASA's Exoplanet Archive contains 4,034 planets identified by Kepler Space Telescope and 2,335 planets are verified exoplanets. 50 planets were lie in the habitable zone. One of the most amazing discovery of Kepler Space Telescope is TRAPPIST-1 system and its seven Earth seized planets.

Assemble Line of Exoplanets discovered by Kepler Space Telescope

Exoplanet Missions of NASA

Exoplanet Populations Chart

Kepler New Planet Candidates

Planets which lie in the Habitable Zone by Kepler Space Telescope of NASA

 Image Credit : Kepler Space Telescope
Catalog Credit: NASA Kepler Team

More Information on Kepler Catalog release at Kepler Catalog Release

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Colored Clouds of Jupiter

     NASA's Juno Jupiter Spacecraft was moving away from Jupiter following its seventh close pass. JunoCam imaged this on 19 May 2017 from about 29,100 miles above the cloud tops.

     The Images shows variety in Jupiter's Stormy atmosphere. The result is a surreal world of vibrant color, clarity and contrast. Four of the Oval white storms is known as String of Pearls. These storms are visible near the top of the image. There is one more orange-colored storm can be seen at the belt-zone, while other storms are cream color.

More Information of Juno at NASA Juno Mission

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Cyclone in Jupiter

 Jupiter's Polar cyclones producing auroras, this image was taken by Juno spacecraft of NASA. Juno was sent to study Jupiter's atmosphere, auroras, storms, and both poles. It takes a long time to carry a research on Jupiter. Juno entered Jupiter's orbit on 4 July 2016, and the primary aim is understand the evolution of Jupiter and the reason for the strong magnetic field. It continuously monitors the polar storms in polar regions. It makes a close flyby once in every 53 days.The next close flyby is on 11 July 2017, and it will fly across most iconic features in our entire solar system. Image Shows that, the cyclones have been formed by the large ammonia gas moving and crashing each other. Glowing North Pole of Jupiter is looking like bright Auroras.

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Hubble's Spirograph IC418 Nebulae

IC 418 Nebulae from Hubble Space Telescope

     A Hubble Image showing planetary nebula IC 418 glows like multifaceted jewel. It lies about 2000 light years away from our Earth in the constellation Lepus. This planetary nebula indicates the final stage of Star Evolution similar to our Sun. The center of the Star was red before few billion years ago, but now expanded to a diameter of 0.1 light-year. The stellar remnant at the center is hot core from which ultraviolet radiation flows from center to surrounding gas.

Over few thousands year, the nebula will gradually disperse into space, and the star will cool and fade away to become a white dwarf. Our Sun will undergo same procedure after next 5 million years.This image is filtered with several color filters. Red shows emission of Nitrogen, Green shows emission of Hydrogen, Blue shows emission of Ionized Oxygen. 

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Top 10 Discoveries of MAVEN

     MAVEN is an American Spacecraft which was launched in 2013 and inserted into Martian Orbit on September 2014. Since its launch it have been exploring Mars Upper atmosphere. MAVEN has made wonderful discoveries of upper atmosphere of Mars, NASA celebrated its 1000 days of orbit around Mars on 17 June 2017. Top 10 discoveries of MAVEN were

• Imaging Showed that distribution of Nitric Oxide and Ozone in the upper atmosphere which shows Complex behavior and indicates that exchange of gases takes place between upper and lower atmosphere.
• Particles from Solar Wind unexpectedly penetrate into upper atmosphere instead of diverted by planet's ionosphere. This particles react with charged particles in ionosphere and convert into neutral atoms that are able to penetrate deeply.
• MAVEN detected the first observations Metal ion layer in the Martian ionosphere.
• It identified Two new types of auroras which are named "Diffuse" and "Proton" aurora. These auroras are not similar to auroras in our Earth.
• These aurorae are caused by influx of Solar particles ejected by various types of Solar Storms.
• The interactions between Solar wind and planet are Complex. This results in the lack of intrinsic Martian Magnetic field and occurrence of small Magnetized crust that can affect incoming solar wind on local scales.
• MAVEN observed seasonal variations of Hydrogen atoms in upper atmosphere by a factor of 10 throughout whole year. The source of Hydrogen is water present in the lower atmosphere that are broken down into Hydrogen and Oxygen by Sunlight.
• It also used of isotopes in upper atmosphere and suggested that 2/3 or more gases has been lost to space.
• MAVEN has measured the rate of stripping gases from top of atmosphere to space along with the process of removal and revealed that large amount of gas have lost to space.
• The Mars atmosphere has been stripped away by the Sun and the Solar Wind. This results in the change of climate from warm to wet environment, early in History to cold and dry climate that we see today.

Credit: MAVEN Team, NASA and Goddard Space Flight Center.

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