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Hubble wakes up 18 year old computer system to help with communications

The Hubble telescope has been a great boon to science, and it has given great service with only a little patching along the way to keep it working. But recently a communications breakdown has left the platform out of work, and a scheduled repair mission set for October 14th has been postponed to at least next February. So, what can you do?

Well, if you have a bunch of great minds together like you happen to have at NASA, you trust the problem to the brain trust, and they get cracking. The solution: wake up an 18 year old computer system that was lying about and put it to work routing the data transmission. Things were tense, since it was not known if the dusty old unit would breathe again.

The systems are a combination of the original hardware from 1990 and a 1999 upgrade that features a 486 chip. The older systems were actually a DF-224 with a 386 based co-processor. So, in so man words, NASA woke up a 386 and a 486 to keep the Hubble Telescope working. (More information about the systems in question can be found in the NASA Hubble Facts Document).

Turns out that the redundant systems booted up just fine, and so far so good. At this point NASA scientists won't know for sure exactly how successful it is until the computer proves itself in executing mission critical tasks, but hopes are high and with just a little luck the Hubble Eye in the Sky will be hard at work again soon.

At least until a Goa' uld ship shows up and incinerates it – but wouldn't even that be some GREAT shots?

Hubble General information
NSSDC ID	1990-037B
Organization	NASA / ESA / STScI
Launch date	April 24, 1990
Deorbited	Likely between 2013 and 2021
Mass	11,110 kg (24,250 lb)
Type of orbit	Near-circular low Earth orbit
Orbit height	589 km (366 mi)
Orbit period	96–97 min
Orbit velocity	7,500 m/s (17,000 mph)
Acceleration due to gravity	8.169 m/s² (26.80 ft/s²)
Location	Low Earth orbit
Telescope style	Ritchey-Chretien reflector
Wavelength	Optical, ultraviolet, near-infrared
Diameter	2.4 m (94 in)
Collecting area	approx. 4.5 m² (46 ft²)^[2]
Focal length	57.6 m (189 ft)
Instruments
NICMOS	infrared camera/spectrometer
ACS	optical survey camera (mostly failed)
WFPC2	wide field optical camera
STIS	optical spectrometer/camera (failed)
FGS	three fine guidance sensors

source:Wikipedia

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A Perfect Storm of Turbulent Gases

Greg Chaffins

NASA Picture of the Day (click picture for larger image)

"Resembling the fury of a raging sea, this image actually shows a bubbly ocean of glowing hydrogen gas and small amounts of other elements such as oxygen and sulfur.

The photograph, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, captures a small region within M17, a hotbed of star formation. M17, also known as the Omega or Swan Nebula, is located about 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. The image was released to commemorate the thirteenth anniversary of Hubble's launch.

The wave-like patterns of gas have been sculpted and illuminated by a torrent of ultraviolet radiation from young, massive stars, which lie outside the picture to the upper left. The glow of these patterns accentuates the three-dimensional structure of the gases. The ultraviolet radiation is carving and heating the surfaces of cold hydrogen gas clouds. The warmed surfaces glow orange and red. The intense heat and pressure cause some material to stream away from those surfaces, creating the glowing veil of even hotter greenish gas that masks background structures. The pressure on the tips of the waves may trigger new star formation within them. "

Image Credit: NASA, ESA and J. Hester (ASU)

via – check out for more NASA photos

Great Southern Land

Greg Chaffins

NASA Picture of the Day

"This sweeping mosaic of Saturn's moon Enceladus provides broad regional context for the ultra-sharp, close-up views NASA's Cassini spacecraft acquired minutes earlier, during its flyby on Aug. 11, 2008.

This false-color mosaic shows that coarse-grained and solid ice are concentrated along valley floors and walls, as well as along the upraised flanks of the "tiger stripe" fractures, which may be covered with plume fallout that landed not far from the sources. Elsewhere on Enceladus, this coarse water ice is concentrated within outcrops along cliff faces and at the top of ridges. The sinuous boundary of scarps and ridges that encircles the south polar terrain at about 55 degrees south latitude is conspicuous. Much of the coarse-grained or solid ice along this boundary may be blocky rubble that has crumbled off of cliff faces as a result of ongoing seismic activity. This mosaic complements the imaging coverage acquired during Cassini's July 2005 flyby of Enceladus."

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

The Life of Stars

Greg Chaffins

NASA Picture of the Day

"NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this stunning true-color picture of the giant galactic nebula NGC 3603 on March 5, 1999 with its Wide Field Planetary Camera 2.

This single view nicely illustrates the entire stellar life cycle of stars, starting with the Bok globules and giant gaseous pillars, followed by circumstellar disks, and progressing to evolved massive stars in the young starburst cluster. The blue supergiant with its ring and bipolar outflow marks the end of the life cycle."

Image Credit: NASA, Wolfgang Brandner (JPL/IPAC), Eva K. Grebel (Univ. Washington), You-Hua Chu (Univ. Illinois Urbana-Champaign)