Astronomers & Observatories
Retrieved 1 to 10 (of 37 total) images | Next Images » | Last Images »
| Last Glance (May 21, 2009) |
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Hubble Space Telescope flies free in space after the crew of space shuttle Atlantis completed the final repair mission on the 19-year-old observatory. During five spacewalks, astronauts replaced or repaired several scientific instruments, as well as gyroscopes, electronics, and insulation. The upgrades should keep Hubble going for another five years or longer. [NASA] |
| Good to Go (May 19, 2009) |
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Astronaut Michael Good works inside Hubble Space Telescope on May 17 during the fourth of five spacewalks to repair and upgrade the orbiting observatory. During the spacewalks, Good and three other astronauts replaced several scientific instruments along with the telescope's batteries, three gyroscopes, and failed electronics units. They also repaired two other instruments. Astronomers hope the repairs, along with a boost to a higher altitude, will keep the telescope going for another five years. [NASA] |
| Ready for an Upgrade (May 15, 2009) |
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Hubble Space Telescope sits in the cargo bay of space shuttle Atlantis in preparation for repairs and upgrades. During the first of five planned spacewalks, astronauts replaced the telescope's main camera and a failed electronics unit. [NASA] |
| Hubble Bound (May 12, 2009) |
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Space shuttle Atlantis roars skyward on May 11 as it begins the final mission to repair and upgrade Hubble Space Telescope. During five spacewalks, crew members will install new instruments, replace failed gyroscopes and control systems, and attempt to repair two failed instruments. [NASA/Tony Gray-Tom Farrar] |
| Antimatter Hunter (May 7, 2009) |
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A balloon lifts an instrument package named BESS from the Antarctic ice in late 2007. During several days of observations from an altitude of more than 20 miles, BESS looked for particles of antimatter. [NASA/BESS] For more information, see our May 7 program. |
| High-Flying Astronomy (May 4, 2009) |
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A balloon-borne telescope takes a look at the universe in this artist's concept. NASA launches several balloon missions per year to study cosmic rays, antimatter, the afterglow of the Big Bang, and many other objects and phenomena that are difficult to see from the surface, through Earth's atmosphere. [NASA/ARCADE/Roen Kelly] For more information, see our May 4 radio program. |
| Neptunian Discovery (May 1, 2009) |
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Gerard Kuiper discovered the second known moon of the planet Neptune on May 1, 1949. Kuiper, who was director of both McDonald and Yerkes observatories, made the discovery with McDonald's 82-inch telescope. The best view of Nereid came from the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which flew past Neptune in 1989. Even its best images, though, showed only a small, fuzzy blob of lights. [McDonald Observatory (2); NASA/JPL] For more information, see our May 1 program. |
| Stellar Celebration (January 1, 2009) |
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Astronomers are celebrating the 400th anniversary of the birth of modern observational astronomy in 2009. The International Year of Astronomy commemorates Galileo Galilei's first use of the telescope to study the night sky in 1609. He discovered that the surface of the Moon is rough, that the Milky Way consists of a vast number of stars, that Venus shows phases, and that moons orbit Jupiter. His discoveries confirmed that Earth is not the center of the universe and demonstrated that the universe is both vast and dynamic -- discoveries that revolutionized human understanding of the cosmos and our place in it. [Tim Jones]
For more information, see our January 1 program. |
| Mr. Halley's Comet (December 25, 2008) |
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Halley's Comet lights up the sky in this picture from 1910, its last great appearance in Earth's night sky. After analyzing the passages of many comets over the previous centuries, in the 18th century British astronomer Edmund Halley had surmised that several of those comets were actually different appearances of a single body, which he predicted would reappear in late 1758. It was first seen on Christmas night of that year by Johann Palitzsch, a German amateur astronomer. In honor of Halley's discovery that comets can loop close to the Sun many times, astronomers named the 1758 comet in his honor. It last returned to Earth's night sky in 1986, and will make its next appearance in 2061. For more information, see our December 25 program. |
| Still Going (November 26, 2008) |
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McDonald Observatory's Harlan J. Smith was dedicated on November 26, 1968. It was built to help with NASA's missions to the planets, but today studies everything from comets to stars to distant galaxies. The 107-inch telescope was the third-largest in the world at the time of its dedication. [Nowlin Photography] For more information, see our November 26 program. |
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