Hubble pinpoints furthest protocluster of galaxies ever seen

[Gibsons]

Lol. Well it's a mirror not a lens. I think dust on the mirror would likely affect the total light gathering power of the telescope and probably wouldn't appear in the image really. Also this is in focus anything on the mirror would appear horribly out of focus I think, again I don't think it would appear at all, and would affect only the light gathering power.

And in the event the dust did show up in pictures (I'm not sure it would either), you'd see the it in the same place every frame.

 

[Locut0s]

And in the event the dust did show up in pictures (I'm not sure it would either), you'd see the it in the same place every frame.

Right. And across the whole EM frequency range.

 

[Fritzo]

They need to run CSI's ultra mega platinum deluxe photo enhancing software on those images.

 

[amdhunter]

Data, how long will it take at warp 9?

Assuming that Warp 9 would let you travel 2,000,000 light years in 1,319 years.
We can divide 900,000,000 by 2,000,000 giving you 450, multiplied by 1,319 or 593,550 years at Warp 9.

Give or take a few minutes.

 

[shortylickens]

So which one of these has the Jedis?

Dantooine.

They're on Dantooine.

 

[Jeff7]

Awesome! One thing I hate about such articles though: tenses. " will eventually merge" should be "the light was emitted by those galaxies nearly 14 billion years ago. Simulations show that long ago, those galaxies likely merged. The merged light from those galaxies should reach us in about another 6 billion years.

"Nonsense! I would never do such a thing, unless you were already having been going to do that!"

 

[DirkGently1]

It's appalling to think that without a Shuttle fleet to service it, Hubble is just being left to rot now. The contribution it has made has been enormous.

 

[irishScott]

Is that where God is hiding?

The Destiny was supposed to answer that, but SyFy canceled Stargate: Universe.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

You just haven't tried hard enough if you believe you can't blow up galaxies.

At an age of 13 odd billion years pretty much every star in the galaxy will have burnt up and been replaced, bar some brown dwarfs and white dwarf/neutron star/black hole remnents.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Data, how long will it take at warp 9?

TOS or TNG scale?

Only joking -

TOS - 18.0 million years
TNG - 8.6 million years

 

[SP33Demon]

Assuming that Warp 9 would let you travel 2,000,000 light years in 1,319 years.
We can divide 900,000,000 by 2,000,000 giving you 450, multiplied by 1,319 or 593,550 years at Warp 9.

Give or take a few minutes.

Where are you getting the 2,000,000 from.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

And in the event the dust did show up in pictures (I'm not sure it would either), you'd see the it in the same place every frame.

Right. And across the whole EM frequency range.

there is dust, a bit of atmosphere, and other crap on the mirror. despite it's incredible emptiness, space is nowhere near empty. these contaminants affect optics differently, depending on the contaminants' properties and the wavelength(s) being studied.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope#Optical_Telescope_Assembly_.28OTA.29

Construction of the Perkin-Elmer mirror began in 1979, starting with a blank manufactured by Corning from their ultra-low expansion glass. To keep the mirror's weight to a minimum it consisted of inch-thick top and bottom plates sandwiching a honeycomb lattice. Perkin-Elmer simulated microgravity by supporting the mirror on both sides with 138 rods that exerted varying amounts of force. This ensured that the mirror's final shape would be correct and to specification when finally deployed. Mirror polishing continued until May 1981. NASA reports at the time questioned Perkin-Elmer's managerial structure, and the polishing began to slip behind schedule and over budget. To save money, NASA halted work on the back-up mirror and put the launch date of the telescope back to October 1984.[28] The mirror was completed by the end of 1981; it was washed using 2,400 gallons (9,100 L) of hot, deionized water and then received a reflective coating of aluminum 65 nm-thick and a protective coating of magnesium fluoride 25 nm-thick.

 

[Jaskalas]

actually, the life forms on the merged galaxies there are looking through their Hubble and seeing our galaxy as a proto galaxy right now, and thinking, wow - someday those proto galaxies will someday merge, and we'll see them in about 6 billion years... :biggrin:

Good catch. Let's hope some of them at least got off their planet. Our capacity to do so isn't looking so hot.

 

[Fritzo]

Dantooine.

They're on Dantooine.

You're much too trusting. Don't be spreading that sh*t around!

 

[Jeff7]

It's appalling to think that without a Shuttle fleet to service it, Hubble is just being left to rot now. The contribution it has made has been enormous.

They could probably build and launch a whole new Hubble for less than it costs to do a single shuttle mission.
(Assuming the Hubble could be easily refitted to go up on a one-shot booster.)
The expensive design and testing work is done. Dig out the blueprints and build another one.

So long as the James Webb telescope can keep its ridiculous budget overruns down for the remainder of the build time, that thing should put Hubble to shame, though it can only see infrared, not the visible spectrum. Oh well. Our eyes are incredibly limited anyway.
If that project was managed properly, they probably would have canceled and reworked that thing in the early stages. Apparently they were over budget very early on, but it wasn't properly reported. Project management fail. Still, it's a drop in the ocean compared to the government's yearly budget.

 

[Juddog]

They could probably build and launch a whole new Hubble for less than it costs to do a single shuttle mission.
(Assuming the Hubble could be easily refitted to go up on a one-shot booster.)
The expensive design and testing work is done. Dig out the blueprints and build another one.

So long as the James Webb telescope can keep its ridiculous budget overruns down for the remainder of the build time, that thing should put Hubble to shame, though it can only see infrared, not the visible spectrum. Oh well. Our eyes are incredibly limited anyway.
If that project was managed properly, they probably would have canceled and reworked that thing in the early stages. Apparently they were over budget very early on, but it wasn't properly reported. Project management fail. Still, it's a drop in the ocean compared to the government's yearly budget.

From what I understand, the big business bailout passed by Congress was more money than the entire 50 year+ budget for NASA to this date.

It's not a matter of not being able to pay for it, it's a matter of where our interests lie. In this case, Congress cares more about big business than they do the US advancing our knowledge of astronomy further. Which is really no surprise, given how hard the GOP pushed to get that tax cut for the top 1% while fighting tooth and nail against allowing the tax cut for the middle class.

Were the US to take our military budget and reduce it to 1/5th it's current size (which would still leave us at the top in the world in terms of military budget), we would easily have enough money to fund NASA, reinstate the space shuttle program, etc..

Basically it comes down to priorities - not for the US as a whole, but for Congress, who primarily focuses on keeping their rich buddies rich while continuing to dominate other countries so that the American empire continues it's dominance.

 

[Cheesemoo]

Well... maybe 10 or so billion years ago they accelerated at each other and are colliding to form a super cluster right now? And I mean this very minute.

Calculations or I call shens!