NASA’s nearly 33-year-old observatory still has plenty of top science to do, and astronomers want to extend its lifetime.
That includes UV light radiating from young stars, which glow as they gobble up gas and dust. Two years ago, STScI astronomers began surveying around 200 such stars, the largest observing programme ever done using Hubble. The goal is to create a library of UV information from these stars that future astronomers can use to understand stellar evolution. The survey is 96% complete.
Astronomers are also teaching Hubble new tricks. Operators recently worked out how to use one of its instruments, the Advanced Camera for Surveys, to combine information about the spectra and polarization of light from celestial objects, which yields new insights into their nature. In this decades-old photo, a machine shapes Hubble’s primary mirror; eventually a flaw will be discovered in the mirror that requires astronauts to fly to the observatory and install corrective optics.The basic systems that keep the telescope operating — such as the solar panels and batteries that power it, and the gyroscopes that orient it in space — are functional but ageing. Sometimes, things break with no warning, such as when Hubble’s.
“We believe we’ll be able to keep Hubble making unique and great scientific discoveries and observations into the end of this decade, if not into the next,” Jeletic says.
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