The Hubble Space Telescope is down since Nov 23 due to a malfunctioning gyroscope, which is needed for accurate pointing.
Only 3 out of 6 gyros have been working since 2018. Hubble can be configured to operate, at somewhat reduced functionality, with just one gyro, but NASA is attempting to revive the faulty unit first.
Unlike in the Shuttle days, Hubble parts cannot be replaced.
Let's take a deep dive into Hubble's Pointing Control System and its gyros.
Next in our 19 days of #PHANGS galaxies is the face-on spiral IC 5332, as seen by #Hubble and #JWST.
It is located about 30 million light-years (8.84 Mpc) away.
The name comes from the 1910 Second Index Catalogue of Nebulæ and Clusters of Stars (IC). This was from a time before astronomers distinguished between nebulas and galaxies. It was discovered by Lewis Swift in 1896 at the Lowe Observatory in California, who noted it was extremely faint.
Next in our 19 days of #PHANGS galaxies is another gorgeous barred spiral galaxy, NCG 1365, as seen by #Hubble and #JWST.
These images are zoomed-in — they only cover the galaxy’s center, giving us a good view of the "spiral within a spiral" common in galaxies with large bars. We see a hint of the spiral arms at the edges.
Next in the 19 days of #PHANGS galaxies is the barred spiral galaxy NGC 4303, as seen by #Hubble and #JWST.
NGC 4303, also known as M61, is about 55 million light-years (17 Mpc) away.
It was discovered by Barnaba Oriani on May 5, 1779. Charles Messier saw it on the same night but mistook it for a comet, only realizing his mistake a few days later when it did not move. It is object 66 in Messier’s catalog of “fuzzy things in the night sky that are not comets”.
📷 https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2024/105/01HMBZZ0VMY1ENVHRKY2DT8T11
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Continuing our 19 days of #PHANGS galaxies, we have the barred spiral galaxy NCG 1385, as seen by #Hubble and #JWST.
NCG 1385 is notable for its asymmetry — it has a bar structure surrounding its core, but its spiral arms are all on the left side of the image. It is known as a flocculent spiral, a galaxy with a large number of chaotic fragmented arms.
The galaxy is about 56 million light years (17 Mpc) away.
Les milliardaires techbros libertariens sont vraiment la plaie de l'humanité.
Les déchets volants de Musk pourrissent les images scientifiques de Hubble 😱
I just love this image - it highlights why we need all the different telescopes: each of them looks at the same object in different ways. And only when working together a complete image emerges.
Here, #Euclid's wide field is combined with #Hubble's zoom-in and #JWST sharpest IR image we ever obtained, allowing us to study how radiation interacts with interstellar matter.
Next in the 19 days of #PHANGS galaxies series, is the barred spiral galaxy NCG 1433, as seen by #Hubble and #JWST.
In addition to its prominent bar, NCG 1433 has nuclear, inner, and outer rings, giving it the nickname of the “Lord of Rings.” Somewhat fitting for a LOTR galaxy, it has something powerful and dangerous at its center — an active, supermassive black hole.
Next in our 19 days of #PHANGS galaxies series is the grand design spiral NGC 4254, as seen by #Hubble and #JWST.
The galaxy has well-defined, loosely wound arms. Most of those arms are completely normal winding counterclockwise around the galaxy. One arm is “peculiar” appearing to extend out further with a greater separation from the rest of the galaxy. It's the Trogdor of galaxies.
First up in our 19 days of #PHANGS galaxies is NGC 628, as seen by #Hubble and #JWST.
Also known as M74 or the "Phantom Galaxy," it is a face-on spiral galaxy about 32 million light-years (9.84 Mpc) away. It’s known as a “grand design spiral,” because its spiral arms are very prominent and well-defined.
The galaxy was discovered in 1780 by Pierre Méchain, and entered as object 74 in Charles Messier’s catalog of fuzzy things in the night sky that were not comets.
Sharing some of my favorite #Hubble images from the #NASA archives to commemorate the space telescope’s 33rd anniversary. We should take a moment to appreciate the beauty and wonder of the universe.
Information about the images + Hubble facts, a thread: 1/x
Next in our 19 days of #PHANGS galaxies is perhaps the prototypical face-on barred spiral galaxy, NCG 1300, as seen by #Hubble and #JWST.
Instead of starting at the galaxy’s core, the arms of barred spirals like NCG 1300 begin at the end of a large bar-shaped structure, filled with older stars.
Two prominent dust lanes cut through the bar, ending in a spiral feature at the center — a spiral within a spiral.
The next galaxy in the 19 days of #PHANGS series is NGC 5068, a face on spiral, as seen by #Hubble and #JWST.
Unlike many of the other PHANGS galaxies, NGC 5068 has a small, weak bar and discontinuous spiral arms. Galaxies with patchy spiral arms like NGC 5068 are known as flocculent spirals.
Today @spacetelescope released 19 images of face-on spiral galaxies from #JWST and #Hubble. The new JWST images were taken as part of the PHANGS program, a survey of nearby galaxies taking high-resolution observations with ALMA, the VLT, Hubble and JWST.
This is now a #PHANGS galaxy stan account. Over the next 19 days, I’ll post a short thread about each one of the galaxies featured in today’s release.
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The next galaxy in 19 days of #PHANGS is a favorite of mine, the barred spiral galaxy NCG 1512, as seen by #Hubble and #JWST.
The bar in NGC 1512 acts as a cosmic funnel, channeling the raw materials required for star formation into the heart of the galaxy. This pipeline of gas and dust in NGC 1512 fuels intense star birth in its circumnuclear starburst ring, which spans about 2,000 light years (700 pc).
NASA confirms that #Hubble will switch to one-gyroscope mode after the increasingly erratic behavior of gyro 3 caused the observatory to repeatedly go into safe mode.
Hubble will continue doing great science, but with somewhat reduced efficiency. It will need more time to slew and lock onto science targets. There is also a limit to the fraction of the sky it can observe at any one time (although it will have access to the full sky over the course of a year).