Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Refurbished Hubble telescope yields spectacular images

By Carol Gee


It was worth the wait! NASA has posted the first new images released by the Hubble ERO folks, following the refurbishment of the space telescope. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) had the honor of presiding at this long awaited unveiling. With the help of Digsby, Twitter, and NASA's award winning website, I was able to grab one of several wonderful images for your viewing pleasure. The image above is called "Stephan's Quintet -- Galactic wreckage."

STS-128 has completed its mission to the International Space Station, exchanging members of the ISS Expedition 20 team, and resupplying the space station. With good weather in Florida, the crew will land early Thursday evening.

Supplemental links -- Hat tip to my regular contributor, Jon, for the links marked with a (#):

Links in boldface are important new elements to the NASA stories to be explored in a subsequent post. The links indicate the Augustine Commission's recommendations to the Obama administration regarding the future of U.S. space flight, jeopardized by a lack of money. I highly recommend the NPR article (below) as a first look at the panel's findings. And here is the intro to the Augustine Commission's Summary Report. To quote:

Summary Report
A summary of the report from the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee was provided to the Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and NASA Administrator on Tuesday, September 8. The summary's text is consistent with presentations made during the committee's final public meeting on Aug. 12. The summary has been posted on this website for the public.

Transmittal Letter for Summary Report (pdf, 32K)

Download a copy of the Summary Report. (pdf, 152K)

For media questions regarding the Summary Report, contact Dr. Edward Crawley at MIT at 617-253-7510.

The full Final Report is still being prepared and will be released when complete. NASA is working with the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and other representatives of the Executive Office of the President to plan the next steps leading to a decision by the President about future U.S. human space flight policy.

Additional news links:


(Cross-posted at Southwest Progressive.)

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posted by Carol Gee at 4:30 PM

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4 Comments:

  • hopefully it wont fall apart like the previous attempts...I remember seeing a parody Hubble toy ad where the object was to keep it together..lol

    By Anonymous constant gina, at 10:12 PM  

  • It's strange to be living in a state that launches these things that let us see 13 billion years back in time yet where a large percentage of the population insists - sometimes violently - that time began 6000 years ago.

    By Blogger Capt. Fogg, at 8:27 AM  

  • constant gina and Capt.Fogg -- I do believe you have put your fingers on a couple of very different kinds of problems. I'll see what I can do if anything :-). Thanks.

    By Blogger Carol Gee, at 12:28 PM  

  • Planetary nebula NGC6302 is beautiful, but they should consider renaming it something like "Heaven's Garden" :)

    By Anonymous Chrystal K., at 6:44 PM  

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