None of us is perfect, not even the Venerable Hubble Space Telescope: NPR

None of us is perfect, not even the Venerable Hubble Space Telescope: NPR

An STS-125 crew member aboard the space shuttle Atlantis snapped a picture of the Hubble Space Telescope after the shuttle gripped the giant observatory.

Johnson Space Center / NASA


Hide the title

Toggle header

Johnson Space Center / NASA

An STS-125 crew member aboard the space shuttle Atlantis took a surprise photo of the Hubble Space Telescope after the shuttle tricked the giant observatory.

Johnson Space Center / NASA

Mike Brann has been using the Hubble Space Telescope continuously for the past three decades, since its inception in 1990. But recently he had an experience. Hubble That he had never had before.

Brown, A Caltech astronomer was allowed to use Hubble to study in detail the four largest moons of Jubilee. This is called the moon Galilean moon, Because Galileo Galilei discovered them in 1610.

They include: Ganymede, which is larger than the planet Mercury and has a mysterious magnetic field; Io, which is the most volcanically active place in the solar system; Europa, which has more liquid water than Earth; And Callisto, which is a simple type of wool.

Ganymede should have been investigated by Hubble, after which, the data was analyzed, processed and emailed to Brawn Brown. He opened it curiously. There was nothing.

READ  Download! Samsung releases Android 11 with One UI 3.0 for Galaxy S10 line in Brazil

He immediately thought to himself, “What am I proud of this time?” That is, as he put it, “What you always do as a scientist is when you see something that doesn’t work.”

He checked and re-examined the instructions sent to Hubble. They were fine.

Still, it turns out that Hubble was pointing to the wrong patch of sky. Brain says that the same mistake happened twice when he tried to survey Jupiter’s moons.

“I don’t know if it’s unusual three times a week, but it sounds weird,” says Bra.

The Hubble Space Telescope was floating in space after the space shuttle’s robotic arm was released in March 2002 after a servicing mission.

NASA


Hide the title

Toggle header

NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope was floating in space after the space shuttle’s robotic arm was released in March 2002 after a servicing mission.

NASA

Tom Bra .N, Head of the Hubble Mission Office at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore – and not affiliated with Mike Braun – says Hubble is actually pointing in the wrong direction at times.

“It was about one percent of the time,” he says. “These days, it’s like five percent of the time.”

READ  Horizon Zero Dawn: Full Version is free for all players

All this is a Buapa telescope. Back in 2018, when a gyroscope at Hubble failed, researchers said Active One of its on-board spares – the so-called gyroscope. It’s too wrong to go.

The bra does not explain, “It tells you that the telescope is rotating even when it is not.”

Binocular operators compensate for this mistake, but sometimes they are able to adjust things.

A frustrated researcher might request to do so, and they would normally retrieve their data – assuming they weren’t trying to see a brief cosmic event a million years ago.

Bra says no one really knows why Gyroscope 3 is such a pain, and it may be so bad to think that they might have to turn it off.

“The biggest negative consequence at the time was that instead of making the whole sky available at any one time, we would have half the sky available at any one time.”

Nevertheless, Hubble will remain very famous. Hundreds of teams arrive each year to use the binoculars. They are lucky, because there is so much demand that the majority of the proposed inspections had to be rejected.

Hubble is currently being used for fields that, like the study, did not exist at the time of the inauguration Planet He orbits distant stars.

“Hubble is actually a very unique resource for humanity. And once it’s over – I mean, a lot of people are already scaring that day – but I think when they’re gone, these people Tough … difficult, “says Brown.

Engineers currently estimate that Hubble could continue for at least another five years and perhaps longer.

NASA has another giant space telescope which James Webb At work, however, this is not exactly what Hubble has experienced Many delays And excessive costs. It won’t start until the end of next year.

About the author: Raven Weber

Musicaholic. Unapologetic alcohol maven. Social media expert. Award-winning coffee evangelist. Typical thinker.

Related Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *