# Questions tagged [hubble-telescope]

Questions regarding the Hubble Space Telescope, a visible light telescope orbiting Earth.

74 questions
Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
38 views

### How was astronomical data meant to be handled on HST precursors?

The first drafts for a large space telescope such as Hubble were made in the 60's, and the idea of a space observatory originated long before that. From Wikipedia: In 1968, NASA developed firm ...
1k views

### Why is Ganymede's aurora only visible in ultraviolet while Earth's is bright green and red?

GANYMEDE AURORAE NASA's Hubble Space Telescope observed a pair of auroral belts encircling the Jovian moon Ganymede. The belts were observed in ultraviolet light by the Space Telescope Imaging ...
41 views

### Approximately how many light years across (arclength) was the furthest reaches of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field?

I can find the area($11^2$ arcminutes) and lengths ($200$ arcseconds per side) but if I were to consider just the furthest region (arclength) of the survey, about how many light years across would ...
50 views

### Relationship between Color Index and Temperature

Is there an exact relationship between color indices and temperature? I have seen some numerical formulas relating B - V color index to temperature, of the form $B - V = a_1 + \frac{a_2}{T}$ . I ...
134 views

### Did Hubble see a pair of UFOs? (Identify this artifact)

The image below is this one, found in this group of Hubble space telescope images of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov (C/2019 Q4). Can anyone recognize this pair of artifacts in the upper right ...
43 views

### Questions about Hubble's brand new view of an interstellar comet (video)

This GIF is made (via giphy.com) from the new NASA Goddard video Hubble's New Image of Interstellar Object and if I understand correctly many (if not all) of these frames are from https://archive....
3k views

### Which are stars and which are noise in this comet photo?

The Forbes news article NASA's Hubble Telescope Snaps Best Images Yet Of Our First Interstellar Comet shows the image below (which I have since annotated) of comet 2I/Borisov (C/2019 Q4) and links to ...
127 views

### What causes these asteroid trails to be so strangely shaped and repeated?

The Phys.org news item Hubble is the ultimate multitasker: Discovering asteroids while it's doing other observations includes the image below. What causes these asteroid trails to be so strangely ...
63 views

### How are “parallel fields” implemented on the Hubble Space Telescope?

The Phys.org news item Hubble is the ultimate multitasker: Discovering asteroids while it's doing other observations mentions the Hubble Space Telescope's use of parallel fields: A couple years ago,...
172 views

### Has Hubble ever been used to try to image a near Earth asteroid?

This answer points out that the near Earth asteroid Apophis will likely be close to 2 arcseconds in diameter as seen from Earth during its close approach in 2029. I speculate that if the Hubble Space ...
223 views

### How do we know the radius of the universe is 47 billion light years?

Hubble deep field image at maximum resolution shows a few of the furthest galaxies very small & faint, only just visible, but suggests that there is more to see beyond if only the resolution were ...
5k views

### What detail can Hubble see on Mars?

I'm researching a scene for a sci-fi novel in which the near-future protagonists observe earth through a station-mounted telescope in Mars orbit. My goal is to understand how much detail they ...
96 views

### False-color wavelength assignments in this “drop-dead gorgeous” image of NGC 2903?

C|Net's Hubble spots drop-dead gorgeous spiral galaxy tucked into Leo links to NASA's Hubble Spots Stunning Spiral Galaxy which shows the image below. The caption on the NASA page doesn't mention the ...
116 views

### How does the Hubble Space Telescope “Drift and Shift”?

The Phys.org article Mystery of the universe's expansion rate widens with new Hubble data says: Astronomers have been using Cepheid variables as cosmic yardsticks to gauge nearby intergalactic ...
75 views

### Why do these Hubble images of Neptune look like Cheela?

The open access paper Formation of a New Great Dark Spot on Neptune in 2018 (cited in Gizmodo's Formation of Dark Vortex on Neptune Captured For the Very First Time and Phys.org's Hubble captures ...
190 views

### Is gravitational lensing a good way to search for negative mass?

Is it possible to verify negative mass with gravitational lensing? The following video proposes an idea that galaxies are surrounded by negative mass: https://youtu.be/MZtS7cBMIc4 Could this be ...
1k views

### What is the “lost light” in this unusual Hubble Deep Sky image?

The Daily Galaxy article “The Lost Hubble” –New! Deepest Image of the Universe Ever Taken says: To produce the image a group of researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) led ...
83 views

### Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observing modes

I have been reading some literature on using the HST to take spectra of exoplanet atmospheres when exoplanets transit in front of their stars. The literature mention two modes of observations, '...
138 views

### How does science knows what is the early universe?

I've read about Hubble seeing the brightest quasar in the early universe. Question is, how does science knows what is early and what is late? Please correct me if I'm wondering, but after the big ...
281 views

### If we had the right technology could we see a distant star in detail?

If, for instance, Hubble's camera was a 10^300 times better could it see a distant star in details or is there a limit to the amount of light that reaches the earth's orbit or perhaps does the light ...
145 views

### Could Ganymede's aurora be seen with the naked eye?

If one was orbiting in the Jovian system, as depicted in this artist conception, could the aurora be seen unassisted? Hubblesite-Illustration Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
63 views

### Issue translating World Coordinate system to cartesian coordinate

I have two fits images from the WFC3 that I am trying to combine with a C# program. When I try to combine multiple images I don't think the values I am getting for my x/y coordinates (calculated from ...
208 views

### How does V838 Monocerotis look today? Any subsequent light echo images, or is the party over?

This answer to the question V838 Monocerotis “light-echo” images morphed into nice video, but why so few original images? contains the following information below. There are other answers and more ...
140 views

### What is the cause of all of these sharp, concentric rings around bright stars in this HST image?

ESA's HST page heic1819 — Photo Release; Hubble reveals cosmic Bat Shadow in the Serpent’s Tail is of course beautiful and stunning, but my eyes are drawn to the diffraction artifacts of the bright ...
308 views

### Where exactly is the modification that first corrected the spherical aberration in Hubble's primary mirror?

The April 2015 CBS News article How NASA fixed Hubble's flawed vision - and reputation describes the modification taken to the Hubble Space Telescopes by the Space Shuttle that was used to correct for ...
97 views

### Where is the exomoon? (Possible discovery of a companion to Kepler-1625b)

The new paper in Science Advances Evidence for a large exomoon orbiting Kepler-1625b (open access!) uses a sophisticated combination of occultation light curve simulation, signal processing and ...
148 views

### Looking at ourselves with a powerful telescope?

Could a small curved mirror and/or lens in Earth's orbit be aimed at a different hemisphere from where you are be be viewed with a powerful telescope to see the ground through the mirror? Would a more ...
66 views

### What star was the asteroid 2014 MU69 predicted to occult on 2018-08-04?

From a search, I found a list of some preparatory HST observations made for the August 4, 2018 occultation of a star by the asteroid 2014 MU69 We propose observations in support of the upcoming New ...
113 views

### Can a telescope image be amplified to see more by adding distant lenses or mirrors?

Could a lens or mirror be placed in orbit on the same flight path with other parts to make a telescope or on the horizon of the moon to see farther with the Hubble?
193 views

### Portion of universe visible if gathering image from inflationary epoch

Apologies in advance for my over-exposure to pop science. I want to propose a telescope powerful enough to collect imagery from 10^-32 seconds after the “Big Bang”, or as soon as the end of the ...
159 views

### Names of specific galaxies in Hubble's XDF

I'm working on a little side project that traces and identifies galaxies in Hubble's XDF using OpenCV. This is my current progress with tracing the more prominent galaxies: I was wondering if there ...
234 views

### Has the Hubble ever been pointed at earth?

As in taking pix of earth, not just happen to point towards earth during a maneuver or whatever.
240 views

### How many Supernovae have been Imaged in the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field?

The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field is an image showing about 10.000 galaxies: 2 Image Credit: NASA Consider Victor Buso's spectacular discovery of an early supernova in NGC 613 (named SN 2016gkg): 4 Image ...
66 views

### What's that limit, where we start to see infrared galaxies?

All the nearby galaxies we see come in visible range, many are visible from ground based telescopes. And the farthest galaxy that hubble discovered recently, 13.4 billion light years away is in infra ...
331 views

### Green objects in Hubble Ultra Deep Field

I was wondering what are the green objects that you see scattered in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image (Warning possibly large/slow download : http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2004-07-a-...
105 views

### How close to Earth were the asteroids moving through this Hubble composite image?

Recently Hubble saw several asteroids traveling erratically through a deep field perspective. What region of the sky is this, and how near were these asteroids to the Earth? The photo is composed ...
45 views

### Why stars are shown as crosses in some Hubble images? [duplicate]

Why the most luminous stars (point sources of light) like the ones in the image below are rendered as crosses? If they are artifacts generated by some Hubble instrument, what causes them? Can them be ...
272 views

### Why was the (small) Hubble better able to find KBO targets for New Horizons than large adaptive optics ground telescopes?

When initial searches for a Kuiper Belt object for New Horizons to fly to after passing Pluto did not find good targets, the Hubble telescope was used, and it resulted in the current targeted flyby ...
661 views

### Is this image captured by the Hubble Telescope an original image?

Is this image an original picture which is not photoshoped? I see a huge number of Hubble Telescope images on Google and I'm curious whether they are real images or not. If not, where I can find the ...
220 views

### How large part of the sky has Hubble observed?

I'm curious for an estimate of how wide a field the Hubble space telescope has observed. Say, for example, how many times it has changed its pointing, and what fraction of that were revisiting the ...
1k views

### How does the Hubble telescope capture long-exposure photos?

I recently learned (if I understood correctly) that the famous Ultra Deep Field photo(s) required something like a 10-day exposure on a very tiny piece of the sky to achieve. How can this occur when ...
204 views

### Why is this HST WFPC2 image so much fuzzier than the WFC3 image of the same field?

I was looking at the comparison of 2007 and 2015 HST images of the "disappearing" star N6946-BH1 in Phys.org's article Collapsing star gives birth to a black hole. The 2007 images is from the WFPC2 ...
1k views

### who invented the Hubble telescope

I know that the Hubble telescope was named after Edwin Hubble, due to his astronomical discoveries of astronomy, but who designed it? Which people were most directly responsible for the inspiring and ...
2k views

### Can radio-based telescopes produce visible light images?

It's a fairly simple question (at least in my layman's mind). Can a radio telescope that has no mirrors or lenses to capture visible light (to human eyes) still produce imagery like an optical ...
73 views

### Are there more images with different filters available for the April 6 Hubble image of Jupiter?

This recent HST image of Jupiter near opposition is described here and here and was made under HST proposal 14756. It was taken with WFC3/UVIS. It is made from three images using narrow-band filters ...
252 views

### Is the Hubble Telescope due to be retired and replaced this year?

Just curious i heard mention of the Hubble being retired soon...not sure if it was 2017...but the same article said there was a more updated telescope ready to replace it?
158 views

### Do you know about any Image Processing Challenges known in Space Telescope like Hubble?

For a computer science project in University; I need to find image processing problems on space exploration and Space Telescopes, only related to the image itself. I have wrote a computer program ...
259 views

### Is this object an asteroid or comet, and how can it produce so many tails?

The NASA Hubble Space Telescope Science Release HEIC 1320 - When is a Comet not a Comet? - Hubble astronomers observe bizarre six-tailed asteroid is self-explanatory, but it doesn't explain what ...