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Scientists debate future of Hubble telescope
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Related Topics: BALTIMORE
BALTIMORE (Map, News) - After testing their solutions on an earthbound duplicate of the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA scientists are expected to rule today on the fate of their $1.5 billion low-
orbit observatory after its main state-of-the-art lens shut itself down last week.
Some research is ongoing, astronomers say, though the temporarily sidelined Advanced Camera for Surveys is the gem of the Hubble’s five instruments.
Scientists at the Hubble Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore rely on Hubble in much of their research, but “there are other instruments on board the telescope,” NASA spokeswoman Susan Hendricks said. “Our research is still going on.”
In the last weeks, scientists have experimented with the Hubble’s clone, housed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, trying to reproduce the conditions that caused the camera to go into “safe mode” June 19.
Researchers are optimistic they can reroute power to the camera from a second power source built into the satellite as early as Friday. A repair mission originally scheduled for this weekend would bring a new camera, batteries and gyroscopes and various repairs and maintenance to the satellite, extending its mission as far as 2013. Otherwise it will be crashed into the atmosphere in 2008.
Paul Feldman — professor of physics and astronomy with the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences — used the Advanced Camera for Science to film the Deep Impact experiment last year. Scientists crashed a probe into the comet Tempel 1 and recorded the impact with Hubble to see what the icy rock was really made of.
“It has more versatility, a wider field of view and had much more discovery space,” Feldman said of the satellite’s camera.
By comparison, the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 — which produced the dazzling, if oddly step-shaped images that came to define the Hubble’s earlier mission — was considered hopelessly out of date.
Other research at the Hubble Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore continues on the telescope’s Near Infra-Red Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer or NICMOS. A cosmic “heat sensor,” this camera can reveal hot objects obscured by dust and gas clouds within nebulae.
khille@baltimoreexaminer.com
