October 31, 2016 - Hubble Gives Us Cosmic Vision

Hubble Gives Us Cosmic Vision An infrared image from the Hubble Space Telescope of the Monkey Head Nebula (NGC 2174) reveals hot young stars (at right) blasting the surrounding dust clouds with their stellar wind, carving it into fantastic shapes and causing the ionized hydrogen within it to glow. Launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990, Hubble is the first major telescope to be utilized in space. A misfigured primary mirror resulted in blurry images at first, but a shuttle servicing mission in 1993 corrected Hubble’s vision. Four subsequent Hubble Servicing Missions flew between 1997 and 2009, the last of which (SM4) was announced ten years ago today. SM4 repaired two of Hubble’s instruments and installed the Wide Field Camera 3 and Cosmic Origins Spectrograph.

Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Weekly Calendar

October 31 - November 6, 2016

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

Monday 31

Halloween

Moon at apogee

2005: Hubble Space Telescope discovers two new moons orbiting Pluto
2006: NASA announces SM4, the fifth and final Hubble servicing mission
2014: SpaceShipTwo crashes during atmospheric test flight, one pilot killed

Tuesday 1

1962: Mars 1 launched
1999: Area Code 321 goes into effect for areas near Kennedy Space Center

Wednesday 2

Saturn 4° south of Moon

1885: Harlow Shapley born
1917: First light for Mount Wilson Observatory 100-inch Hooker telescope

Thursday 3

Venus 7° south of Moon
Taurid meteor shower

1957: Sputnik 2 carries dog Laika, first living creature to orbit Earth
1966: Test flight of Manned Orbital Laboratory components
1973: Mariner 10 launched
1994: STS-66 Atlantis launched