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| Image credit: Hubble |
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| New Hubble Wallpaper |
Sep 9, 2003 - Sorry about the delay there yesterday, we're redoing the floor here and the computer was inaccessible. Not to mention my typing hands being pretty sore after a day wielding an air chisel. It's one of those glueless wood laminate floors that interlock so well even I can't mess it up.
Anyway, here's a wallpaper of the recent Hubble photo taken of galaxy NGC 3370. The amazing thing about this picture is that they did such a long exposure (24 hours) that the background is filled with dim galaxies. The more you look at it, the more galaxies you see.
To make this your computer background, click the link below and then right-click anywhere on the image and select "Set as Wallpaper".
Click here to download the image at 1024x768 resolution. (127 KB)
I've also added the image to the photo gallery, at an extremely high resolution, so if you really want to appreciate it - purchase a print copy. :-)
Click here and then go into the Hubble gallery. It's the first image in the collection.
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today
P.S. One last reminder, the contest to win a DVD Player and Apollo 11 DVD ends tomorrow, so if you haven't already, enter for a chance to win some cool prices. |
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| Image credit: Hubble |
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| Three Views of Saturn |
| Sep 9, 2003 - The planet Saturn reached its maximum tilt towards the Earth last Spring, and astronomers took advantage of the situation to image the ringed planet in three wavelengths of light using the Hubble Space Telescope: ultraviolet, visible, and infrared. Saturn tilts at an angle of 26-degrees and experiences seasons in its hemispheres like the Earth as it travels around the Sun; its orbit takes nearly 30 years. Particles in Saturn's atmosphere reflect different wavelights of light differently, so the different images can help fill in pieces of missing information. |
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| Image credit: NASA |
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| Shuttles Will Return to Flight in March |
| Sep 8, 2003 - NASA representatives met with the media on Monday and announced that the space shuttle would begin operations again some time between March 11 and April 6. Several safety changes are going to be made before the first shuttle, Atlantis, launches to visit the International Space Station: the bipod ramp (which shed foam on the Columbia launch) will be redesigned, and launch windows will only be in the day so cameras can track the launch. Perhaps the biggest changes, however, will come from NASA's attempts to change its culture to improve safety. "We will be safety driven, not schedule driven." |
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| Image credit: ESA |
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| Hubble Helps Prepare Rosetta Mission |
| Sep 6, 2003 - The Hubble Space Telescope has been making detailed observations of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko - the new target for the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission. The data from Hubble has helped the ESA make precise measurements of the comet's shape, size and spin-rate so they can fine-tune Rosetta's flight. If all goes well, Rosetta will launch on February 26, 2004, and then take 10 years to reach the comet. It will orbit the comet and then drop a scientific package onto the surface which should provide scientists with plenty of new data. |
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| Image credit: Hubble |
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| Hubble Sees Distant Icy Objects |
| Sep 6, 2003 - Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered three of the faintest and small objects ever seen in the Outer Solar System. Each object is a lump of ice and rock, called a Kuiper Object, that could date back to the creation of the Solar System, 4.5 billion years ago. What's surprising, however, is how few Kuiper Objects the team discovered. They were expecting to find 60 as small as 15 km in the field they surveyed, but only turned up 3. |
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