The Deep Space Telescope

[wayne]

I would like to see the deep space telescope employed. Two things make this interesting to me: One is the purpose of the telescope and the other is the uniqueness of the instrument itself. The purpose would be to study the alpha centauri star system which is our nearest stellar neighbor. The system is composed of three stares two which are about the size of our sun and orbit each at a distance of about half the diameter of our system. On one of the earth like planets orbiting one of the stars the other would appear a very bright star that would act like a planet. I feel certain that the system would have earth like planets and life.

What would be unique about the telescope is that it would not look like a telescope. It would be a beam made of sheet perhaps as long as a quarter mile. It could have two beams that intersected to form a cross, but one would work. In the middle would be a computer, a manifold, and phase shifters out from the middle on both sides would be hundreds of small telescopes and video monitors. The device would oriented towards the target by a propulsion system and rotated; the cameras would collect the light within the rotation and the computer, manifold and phase shifters would combine the light to produce an image somewhat equivalent to telescope with a quarter mile wide mirror. It would have limitations. It would not be able to detect movement, but I believe it would be able to see planet as well as oceans, mountains and vegetation on the planets.

Something interesting I remember about the construction of the triangle beam is that robots that would look like giant tape dispensers would build it. The sheet metal would be transported to space in large rolls that would placed in the in the robots and feed out through a slot where it would be folded into a triangler shape with triangles cut in the sides and folded in to overlaping folds from the other sides in such a way as to make the beam rigid when it is all welded together.

 

[mikeRRX]

That is a good idea, but totally unreasonable. Main reason: price. What corporation, company or gov't funded space program dump money on an overly complicated sounding project. People making the ultimate decision won't look at how clever the design is. They will look at feasibility. I don't know much about the theory behind your "light" machine, but me, personally, would dump it because it sounds to complicated. The United States would be better off building it's own particle accelerator. So what if Alpha Centauri has Earth like planets. It will be a very,very long time before we could take advantage of it. Particle accelerators would advance our understanding of OUR world, which should be paramount. Also other worlds, if you look at it with the right point-of-view. We might be living on this planet here for awhile longer.

 

[KittenKoder]

That is a good idea, but totally unreasonable. Main reason: price. What corporation, company or gov't funded space program dump money on an overly complicated sounding project. People making the ultimate decision won't look at how clever the design is. They will look at feasibility. I don't know much about the theory behind your "light" machine, but me, personally, would dump it because it sounds to complicated. The United States would be better off building it's own particle accelerator. So what if Alpha Centauri has Earth like planets. It will be a very,very long time before we could take advantage of it. Particle accelerators would advance our understanding of OUR world, which should be paramount. Also other worlds, if you look at it with the right point-of-view. We might be living on this planet here for awhile longer.

Hell, until we colonize nearby planets there will never be a use for knowing about those out of our own solar system.

 

[Gungnir]

Nonsense, it could also tell us where to direct our retaliatory relativistic kinetic kill vehicles incase of the Fithp.

Go NERVA/Project Daedalus!

 

[mikeRRX]

You mean spaceborne ballistic weapons? Do we even have any of those? I personally think we're screwed if the Fithp happens. What does that mean anyways?

 

[Gungnir]

The Fithp were some quasi intelligent two-trunked elephants that got into a civil war with other, slightly smarter, two trunked elephants. The Fithp got put onto a giant space ship and came to Earth for a new home. Between the United States of America, the Soviet Union, and some tribes in Africa; Humans had to put the mainbody of the Fithp herd into mortal danger. It is a story, FOOTFALL by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and a damn good one at that.

Just in case an alien species crosses us; and they are a little dumber than the Human maximum intelligence ability (as in the aliens are as smart as we are currently acting), we could recover and use our knowledge to build and launch a retaliation to affect xenocide.

 

[waltky]

Herschel space telescope does the Horsehead Nebula...

Horsehead Nebula: Herschel telescope images astronomical classic
19 April 2013 - One of the classics of astronomy, the Horsehead Nebula, has been re-imaged by Europe's soon-to-retire Herschel space telescope.

Europe's Herschel space telescope has imaged one of the most popular subjects in the sky - the Horsehead Nebula - and its environs. The distinctively shaped molecular gas cloud is sited some 1,300 light-years from Earth in the Constellation Orion. It is in a region of space undergoing active star formation - something Herschel has been most keen to study. The Hubble space observatory has also returned to the Horsehead scene, to celebrate 23 years in orbit.

Herschel sees the sky at far-infrared wavelengths, revealing the vigorous star-forming activity taking place in the Constellation Orion

Together, these two great facilities give scientists a much broader insight into what is taking place in this familiar patch of the heavens. "You need images at all scales and at all wavelengths in astronomy in order to understand the big picture and the small detail," said Prof Matt Griffin, the principal investigator on Herschel's SPIRE instrument. "In this new Herschel view, the Horsehead looks like a little feature - a pimple. In reality, of course, it is a very large entity in its own right, but in this great sweep of a picture from Herschel you can see that the nebula is set within an even larger, molecular-cloud complex where there is a huge amount of material and a great range of conditions," the Cardiff University, UK, researcher told BBC News.

To provide a sense of scale, the Horsehead Nebula, also known in the catalogues as "Barnard 33", is about five light-years "tall". Hubble sees the Horsehead in near-infrared light. Herschel, on the other hand, goes to much longer wavelengths. This allows it to see the glow coming directly from cold gas and dust - the material that will eventually collapse under gravity to form the next generation of stars. Scientists are particularly keen to understand the mechanisms that drive the production of the biggest stars - objects much more massive than our own Sun that form relatively fast, burn bright but brief lives, and interact strongly with their environment, influencing the next round of star formation.

Hubble's new view of the Horsehead Nebula, a large cloud of hydrogen laced with dust

The Orion Molecular Cloud Complex is one of the best and nearest regions in space to study this activity. Prof Griffin explained: "You can see all the things we look for in Herschel images - the filaments, the bubbles; the wispy material, the reddish material that hasn't yet actually started to form stars. "You can also see nebulosity where material has been lit up from inside by stars; and features like the Horsehead Nebula where that star formation has yet to really get going." Hubble's new view was acquired by its Wide Field Camera-3 instrument, which was installed by astronauts on the last shuttle servicing mission in 2009. The image was taken to celebrate its 23rd birthday in orbit. It was launched on 24 April 1990. The much shorter wavelengths at which Hubble works means it can produce finer, sharper detail than Herschel.

More BBC News - Horsehead Nebula: Herschel telescope images astronomical classic

 

[waltky]

End of the European Herschel space telescope mission...

Herschel space telescope finishes mission
29 April 2013 - Europe's billion-euro Herschel space observatory has ended its mission to image the far-infrared Universe.

Europe's flagship space telescope has stopped working. The billion-euro Herschel observatory has run out of the liquid helium needed to keep its instruments and detectors at their ultra-low functioning temperature. This equipment has now warmed, meaning the telescope cannot see the sky. Herschel, which was sensitive to far-infrared and sub-millimetre light, was launched in 2009 to study the birth of stars and the evolution of galaxies. Its 3.5m mirror and three state-of-the-art instruments made it the most powerful observatory of its kind ever put in space. The end of operations is not a surprise. Astronomers always knew the helium store onboard would be a time-limiting factor.

Herschel pictured the "cold cosmos" - places where gas and dust are coming together to form stars. Here, in the Rosette Nebula, in the constellation of Monoceros, a mass of new stars (bright spots) are just firing into life

The "blind" satellite is currently located about 1.5 million km from Earth on the planet's "night side". Controllers at the European Space Agency's (Esa) operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany, will run some final tests on the spacecraft in the coming weeks before putting it in a slow drift around the Sun. "We will push it out into a heliocentric orbit and passivate it," said Micha Schmidt, the Herschel spacecraft operations manager. "We will switch off the transponder and the spacecraft will go silent." Herschel should not come anywhere near the Earth again for several hundred years.

Data legacy

The telescope will be remembered for its great vistas of gas and dust; the billowing clouds and threading filaments that trace the locations where future stars will form. Over the course of the mission, it gathered thousands of such images. It also acquired detailed spectrographic data on many of its subjects, revealing their chemistry. All of the information is now being assembled into a public archive. This will become an important resource for future study and a starting point to plan follow-up observations with other astronomical facilities. This is already happening with the recently opened, ground-based Alma telescope in Chile, which views the sky at frequencies that overlap those pursued by Herschel.

A US-German telescope called Sofia, which is mounted on a converted Boeing 747, can also see some of Herschel's frequencies. "But the amazing thing about Herschel is that its maximum productivity in science terms probably won't be reached for another five years yet," said Prof Matt Griffin, the principal investigator on Herschel's Spire instrument. "The telescope gathered images and information in such volume that astronomers have barely scratched the database," the Cardiff University, UK, scientist told BBC News.

More BBC News - Herschel space telescope finishes mission

 

[waltky]

That's all she wrote, folks...

Herschel telescope switched off
17 June 2013 > The billion-euro Herschel space telescope has been switched off.

Controllers on Monday emptied the satellite's fuel tanks and commanded the observatory to sever all communications. The "passivated" spacecraft is now in a slow drift around the Sun, about 2.14 million km from Earth. With its 3.5m mirror and three state-of-the-art instruments, Herschel was the most powerful observatory of its kind ever put in space. In its four years of operations, it gathered pictures and other data at far-infrared wavelengths that have transformed our understanding of star formation and galaxy evolution. The final command to turn off the communications transponder was sent from the European Space Operations Centre (Esoc) in Darmstadt, Germany, at 12:25 GMT.

Although the observation phase has ended, the science will continue for many years to come

The great distance to Herschel meant it took six seconds for the radio message to reach the observatory and a further six seconds for ground stations on Earth to confirm the loss of signal. "It really was a beautiful spacecraft," said Micha Schmidt, the European Space Agency's (Esa) Herschel spacecraft operations manager. "It never gave us too much trouble. And that allowed us to streamline things; to learn a lot about pointing the spacecraft, for example. This meant we could maximise the science," he told BBC News.

Empty tanks

Decommissioning became necessary when Herschel used up the last of its superfluid helium coolant. This had maintained the efficient working of the instruments and their detectors, which needed to be kept just fractions of a degree above absolute zero. When the helium ran dry, Herschel was effectively blind to the objects it wanted to see on the sky. End-of-life actions involved moving the satellite from its observation station, a gravitational "sweetspot" about 1.5 million km on the "nightside" of the Earth known as the second Lagrangian point (L2). This will keep the 7m-long spacecraft well clear of other astronomy missions that want to use L2's very stable temperature and light conditions.

Controllers also emptied Herschel's hydrazine propellant tanks to reduce the risk of future explosion. This involved commanding the satellite to fire its thrusters to exhaustion. As Herschel drifts, probably in a slow tumble, it will continue to charge its batteries and provide power to the onboard computer. "In normal circumstances, there is an automatic recovery function whereby Herschel would try to switch on the transponder, but we have overridden this," said Mr Schmidt. "It will never contact Earth again. We could re-command it. This mode is hardwired and we can't overcome this. But we have no intention of doing that."

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