Comments on: It’s baaaaaaaack!

By: Well, That Was Fast! | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

Well, That Was Fast! | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:14:24 +0000

[...] week saw the first public release of data from the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope, and its new imaging camera (Wide Field Camera 3, or [...]

By: judith weingarten

judith weingarten — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:59:58 +0000

Thanks so much for the heads up. This is a non-physical-scientist's take on what you wrote: Zenobia Gets To Know Hubble

By: Brian137

Brian137 — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:21:24 +0000

In post #14, Shankar asks if the colors are natural or “rendered.” I have been hoping someone would address this question. Have the reds and blues been “enhanced,” or are they just the way Captain Kirk sees them out there? Are those beautiful stars wearing makeup, are they just back from the hairdresser’s, or do they really look that way?

By: Whither NASA: the Moon? Mars? Science? | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:09:34 +0000

[...] the other hand, has been instrumental in producing amazing science, epitomized by the launching and servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope. Given the immense cost of the shuttle program, however, the science [...]

By: Shankar

Shankar — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:21:40 +0000

In the photo above, are the colors natural or have they been rendered?

By: TheRadicalModerate

TheRadicalModerate — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:56:29 +0000

Are the “blue stragglers” still pop I stars, or is there some mechanism where pop II stars have appeared in the cluster?

By: Hubble lives! « Living Questions

Hubble lives! « Living Questions — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:14:05 +0000

[...] A couple of folks closer to the source weigh in here and here. [...]

By: Julianne

Julianne — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:20:40 +0000

John W — All the dots are stars in the globular cluster (which orbits our galaxy). The brightest red ones are asymptotic giant branch stars and red giant stars. The brightest blue ones are (probably) “blue stragglers” or blue horizontal branch stars. All of these are phases of evolution that many stars eventually go through. Here, it’s a group of stars that all have pretty much the same age. However, different stellar masses evolve at different rates, and sometimes go through different phases (i.e. more mass = faster rate of fuel consumption = faster evolution and more mass for doing fancy nucleosynthesis = different evolution).

Brian — I’m not sure if an Ultra Mega Hubble Deep Field is the right thing to do. The optical imaging camera was repaired to what it was when the UDF was done (i.e., you’d just get back to where you were). The capabilities at UV and NIR wavelengths, however, are much improved, so maybe better to go back and broaden the wavelength coverage of the original UDF.

By: John Wendt

John Wendt — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:50:29 +0000

Awesome; thanks, Julianne.

Looks like the red and blue dots are stars in our galaxy, white dots are distant galaxies?

By: Peter Coles

Peter Coles — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:33:43 +0000

Superimpose that on a tree and it would make a nice Christmas card…