
Hubble's star refuses to fade - sjcsjc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31499061
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johnohara
The deliberate use of the word "observable" when referring to the Universe, is
perhaps one of the most profound changes in human thinking the Hubble Space
Telescope has contributed.

One falls silent contemplating the images this machine has produced.

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rm999
I don't think the Hubble Space Telescope has anything to do with that term. We
use "observable" because the Universe is far larger than what we can ever
physically see or interact with (there's a growing body of evidence that it's
infinite and "flat"). The observable part is an upper bound on the part of the
Universe that will _ever_ be relevant to us. Kind of makes me feel
insignificant in a weird way :)

Also, the Hubble can't even see most of the Observable Universe; it can see
~15 billion lights years away, whereas the radius of the observable universe
is 47 billion light years.

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rquantz
How is that the radius of the observable universe? I thought the observable
universe was bounded by the age of the universe, which why the furthest
distant observations show the universe close to the time of the Big Bang.
Shouldn't the radius of the observable universe = the number of years light
has been traveling toward us?

Edit: Wikipedia says I'm wrong about this. What's new?

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vidarh
The universe has been expanding.

So the distances now are vastly larger than they used to be when the light
left its sources.

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brudgers
Sound engineering often trumps sexier approaches. Legacy systems should not be
under rated.

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icegreentea
Ya. That said, flying a repair mission to install a corrective lens on a space
telescope is/was totally in the realm of 'sexy solutions'.

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sanoli
The problem here is that messing up the mirror on such a project in the first
place was not very sound engineering.

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brudgers
Professional engineering practice admits the possiblity of errors and
ommissions. Insurance is the technique used to address it. In ordinary
practice this is something that is purchased from agents with an associated
cost. In the case of Hubble, it was purchased for the cost of making the
telescope serviceable. Infallability is not an engineering practice. "Don't
screw up" is not an engineering heuristic.

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kartikkumar
My PhD was made possible by the great HST. True testament to the infinite
science made possible by great Space telescopes. Here's hoping JWST [1] is
considered in a similar light 20 years from now.

[1] [http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/](http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/)

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IndianAstronaut
I am very excited about the prospects of the JWST and the LSST.

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PhantomGremlin
One of my favorite Hubble images is the eXtreme Deep Field, which shows
galaxies from 13.2 billion years ago.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_eXtreme_Deep_Field](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_eXtreme_Deep_Field)

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3327
This is a product... What one produces when you have the commitment and
dedication of the brightest minds. Precision hand crafted, every piece
installed by hand and custom made.

Nanometer precision and dedication, ownership produces a top notch product
like this that just keeps working... No pun intended to the Kepler team.

