Of course, the Webb Telescope gets most of the attention these days—and it should. This is a monumental achievement!
But space telescope predecessor James Webb, Hubble Space Telescopeshows us why it should not be forgotten.
NASA and ESA, which jointly operate Hubble, have just released (opens in new tab) new spectacular image of globular cluster NGC 6638, a star cluster in the constellation Sagittarius. The image was created from observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Related: Hubble Space Telescope: Photos, Facts and History
Before Hubble, it was almost impossible to distinguish individual stars in a globular cluster, which is a dense collection of ancient stars numbering tens of thousands to millions. Because ground-based telescopes must peer through Earth’s atmosphere to see the stars, their view can sometimes be distorted.
That’s less of a problem for Hubble, which orbits Earth 340 miles (547 kilometers) above the surface. By comparison, Webb is about 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, far beyond, although it operates primarily in the infrared spectrum, while Hubble operates in the visible light spectrum.)
This means that Hubble is technically in the atmosphere, which extends 6,200 miles (10.00 kilometers). In fact, it’s even close enough to that astronauts can visit to carry out repairs. (Or at least they could when the space shuttle was flying.) But Hubble is at a point where the atmosphere is so thin that it doesn’t obscure the observatory’s view of the stars.
As such, Hubble plays an important role in the study of globular clusters and continues to make new discoveries on a regular basis.
Although Hubble is now more than 30 years old, the telescope still has plenty of life left in it, and scientists will continue to use it, along with the James Webb Telescope, to answer the biggest questions about space.
The new image was released on August 1st.
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