Habl ima 25 godina, a ovo su njegove najlepše fotografije svemira

Već 25 godina Habl kruži oko Zemlje. Otprilike svakih sat i po ovaj revolucionarni teleskop napravi krug oko naše planete, a upravo zahvaljujući njemu svemir nam je danas dosta bliži i poznatije nam je naše mesto u njemu.

Habl je toliko važan da je i NASA rekla kako je on najznačajniji napredak u astronomiji od Galilea i njegovog teleskopa.

Njegova izrada počela je još 1977. godine, a osam godina kasnije bio je gotov. Međutim, nakon katastrofe "Čalendžera" 1986. njegovo je lansiranje odloženo. Ovaj sjajni svemirski cilindar, veličine otprilike kao manji autobus, na svoj je put krenuo na šatlu "Diskaveri" 24. aprila 1990. godine. Međutim, nije sve bilo bajno. Ubrzo su naučnici shvatili da će zbog greške od 2,2 mikrona na ogledalu imati mutne slike. Tri godine kasnije, nakon što su astronauti popravili teleskop, zauvek su promenili način na koji vidimo svemir.

Problemi su se javili desetak godina kasnije, kada je trebalo promeniti žiroskope i druge sisteme.Tokom misije 2009. Habl je prošao kroz poslednju "generalku" u kojoj su mu ugradili nove instrumente i zamenili stare, promenili baterije i žiroskope i dodali nov računar i senzore za navođenje. Naučnici su i razvili softver koji mu omogućuje da radi sa samo jednim žiroskopom za stabilizaciju.

NASA se zbog toga nada da će Habl raditi i nakon 2020. godine i da će i dalje biti zaslužan za brojna otkrića. Ranije je plan bio da ga vrate na Zemlju i postave kao eksponat u muzeju, ali teleskop je nadživeo i program šatl.

Kako se Habl nalazi na visini od 569 kilometara, dovoljno je daleko od smetnji Zemljine atmosfere, svetlosnog zagađenja, da bi imao neometan pogled na svemir. Upravo zbog te prednosti otkrili smo delove svemira za koje nismo znali, a astronomi su podatke Habla koristili u 12.700 naučnih radova. To ga svrstava među najproduktivnije naučne instrumente ikad izgrađene, navodi NASA. Zbog njega znamo i da je svemir star 13,8 milijardi godina, a pomogao je i u potvrđivanju postojanja tamne energije, divovskih crnih rupa, i otkrivanju životnog ciklusa zvezda.

Čak i danas, institut koji je naučni operativni centar za Habl prima šest do sedam puta više zahteva za posmatranje od onog što mogu zadovoljiti.

• Procenjuje se da je od izgradnje, nadogradnji i svih poslova vezanih za teleskop, njegov ukupni trošak oko 10 milijardi dolara.
• Habl na Zemlju svake nedelje pošalje oko 120 GB podataka.
• Dug je 11 metara, širok 4,2 i težak 11 tona
• Središte mu je ogledalo razmera 2,4 metra
• Napaja se preko solarnih panela, a preko dve antene prima i šalje podatke na Zemlju

Pogledajte neke od njegovih najlepših fotografija svemira.

NASA Hubble Sees Sparring Antennae Galaxies -- The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped the best ever image of the Antennae Galaxies. Hubble has released images of these stunning galaxies twice before, once using observations from its Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) in 1997, and again in 2006 from the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Each of Hubble’s images of the Antennae Galaxies has been better than the last, due to upgrades made during the famous servicing missions, the last of which took place in 2009. The galaxies — also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039 — are locked in a deadly embrace. Once normal, sedate spiral galaxies like the Milky Way, the pair have spent the past few hundred million years sparring with one another. This clash is so violent that stars have been ripped from their host galaxies to form a streaming arc between the two. In wide-field images of the pair the reason for their name becomes clear — far-flung stars and streamers of gas stretch out into space, creating long tidal tails reminiscent of antennae. This new image of the Antennae Galaxies shows obvious signs of chaos. Clouds of gas are seen in bright pink and red, surrounding the bright flashes of blue star-forming regions — some of which are partially obscured by dark patches of dust. The rate of star formation is so high that the Antennae Galaxies are said to be in a state of starburst, a period in which all of the gas within the galaxies is being used to form stars. This cannot last forever and neither can the separate galaxies; eventually the nuclei will coalesce, and the galaxies will begin their retirement together as one large elliptical galaxy. Credit: NASA/European Space Agency #nasagoddard #Hubble #HST #Galaxy #space #star

A photo posted by NASA Goddard (@nasagoddard) on Nov 15, 2013 at 7:36pm PST

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The galaxy UGC 8201, captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is a dwarf irregular galaxy, so called because of its small size and chaotic structure. It lies just under 15 million light-years away from us in the constellation of Draco (the Dragon). As with most dwarf galaxies it is a member of a larger group of galaxies. In this case UCG 8201 is part of the M81 galaxy group; this group is one of the closest neighbors to the Local Group of galaxies, which contains our galaxy, the Milky Way. UGC 8201 is at an important phase in its evolution. It has recently finished a long period of star formation, which had significant impact on the whole galaxy. This episode lasted for several hundred million years and produced a high number of newborn bright stars. These stars can be seen in this image as the dominating light source within the galaxy. This process also changed the distribution and amount of dust and gas in between the stars in the galaxy. Such large star formation events need extensive sources of energy to trigger them. However, compared to larger galaxies, dwarf galaxies lack such sources and they do not appear to have enough gas to produce as many new stars as they do. This raises an important unanswered question in galaxy evolution: How do relatively isolated, low-mass systems such as dwarf galaxies sustain star formation for extended periods of time? Due to its relative proximity to Earth UGC 8201 is an excellent object for research and provides an opportunity to improve our understanding of how dwarf galaxies evolve and grow. Credit: ESA/NASA #nasagoddard #hubble #space #galaxy

A photo posted by NASA Goddard (@nasagoddard) on Mar 13, 2015 at 12:15pm PDT

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We here at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center like to think when you smile the galaxy smiles back at you. Hubble has proved that for us! 😉 In the center of this image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849 — and it seems to be smiling. You can make out its two orange eyes and white button nose. In the case of this “happy face”, the two eyes are very bright galaxies and the misleading smile lines are actually arcs caused by an effect known as strong gravitational lensing. Galaxy clusters are the most massive structures in the Universe and exert such a powerful gravitational pull that they warp the spacetime around them and act as cosmic lenses which can magnify, distort and bend the light behind them. This phenomenon, crucial to many of Hubble’s discoveries, can be explained by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. In this special case of gravitational lensing, a ring — known as an Einstein Ring — is produced from this bending of light, a consequence of the exact and symmetrical alignment of the source, lens and observer and resulting in the ring-like structure we see here. Hubble has provided astronomers with the tools to probe these massive galaxies and model their lensing effects, allowing us to peer further into the early Universe than ever before. This object was studied by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) as part of a survey of strong lenses. Image Credit: NASA/ESA #Hubble25 #nasagoddard #Hubble #space #smile #galaxy

A photo posted by NASA Goddard (@nasagoddard) on Feb 10, 2015 at 8:59am PST

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This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, taken in near-infrared light, transforms the pillars into eerie, wispy silhouettes, which are seen against a background of myriad stars. The near-infrared light can penetrate much of the gas and dust, revealing stars behind the nebula as well as hidden away inside the pillars. Some of the gas and dust clouds are so dense that even the near-infrared light cannot penetrate them. New stars embedded in the tops of the pillars, however, are apparent as bright sources that are unseen in the visible image. The ghostly bluish haze around the dense edges of the pillars is material getting heated up by the intense ultraviolet radiation from a cluster of young, massive stars and evaporating away into space. The stellar grouping is above the pillars and cannot be seen in the image. At the top edge of the left-hand pillar, a gaseous fragment has been heated up and is flying away from the structure, underscoring the violent nature of star-forming regions. Astronomers used filters that isolate the light from newly formed stars, which are invisible in the visible-light image. At these wavelengths, astronomers are seeing through the pillars and even through the back wall of the nebula cavity and can see the next generations of stars just as they're starting to emerge from their formative nursery. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Read more: http://1.usa.gov/1HGfkqr #nasaoddard #space

A photo posted by NASA Goddard (@nasagoddard) on Jan 7, 2015 at 9:36am PST

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NASA’s Hubble, Chandra Find Clues that May Help Identify Dark Matter — Using observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have found that dark matter does not slow down when colliding with itself, meaning it interacts with itself less than previously thought. Researchers say this finding narrows down the options for what this mysterious substance might be. Dark matter is an invisible matter that makes up most of the mass of the universe. Because dark matter does not reflect, absorb or emit light, it can only be traced indirectly by, such as by measuring how it warps space through gravitational lensing, during which the light from a distant source is magnified and distorted by the gravity of dark matter. Caption: Here are images of six different galaxy clusters taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (blue) and Chandra X-ray Observatory (pink) in a study of how dark matter in clusters of galaxies behaves when the clusters collide. A total of 72 large cluster collisions were studied. Credit: NASA and ESA #nasagoddard #hubble #hst space #darkmatter

A photo posted by NASA Goddard (@nasagoddard) on Mar 26, 2015 at 12:03pm PDT

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NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has revisited the famous Pillars of Creation, revealing a sharper and wider view of the structures in this visible-light image. Astronomers combined several Hubble exposures to assemble the wider view. The towering pillars about are 5 light-years tall. The new image was taken with Hubble's versatile and sharp-eyed Wide Field Camera 3. The pillars are bathed in blistering ultraviolet light from a grouping of young, massive stars located off the top of the image. Streamers of gas can be seen bleeding off the pillars as the intense radiation heats and evaporates it into space. Denser regions of the pillars are shadowing material beneath them from the powerful radiation. Stars are being born deep inside the pillars, which are made of cold hydrogen gas laced with dust. The pillars are part of a small region of the Eagle Nebula, a vast star-forming region 6,500 light-years from Earth. The colors in the image highlight emission from several chemical elements. Oxygen emission is blue, sulfur is orange, and hydrogen and nitrogen are green. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) #nasagoddard #space #Hubble #hd

A photo posted by NASA Goddard (@nasagoddard) on Jan 6, 2015 at 8:11am PST