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Oct 16, 2019 4 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Hubble captured a new view of an interstellar comet! That's a comet that came from outside our solar system, in the mysterious region of space between stars. ☄️

Have questions? Join scientists later today from 2-4 p.m. EDT to get them answered!

go.nasa.gov/2pw6blJ
Dr. Kenneth Carpenter is the Hubble Space Telescope Operations Project Scientist & the WFIRST Ground System Project Scientist @NASAGoddard in Greenbelt, Maryland. His research specialty is on the outer atmospheres & winds of cool, evolved stars. He's here to answer questions! Image
Max Mutchler is a scientist @stsci in Baltimore, where he has worked on Hubble for almost 30 years. He is an expert on Hubble’s cameras, & specializes in using them to observe Solar System objects. Max is now transitioning to work on @NASAWFIRST, a future space telescope. Image
Dr. Jennifer Wiseman is the Hubble Space Telescope Senior Project Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Her research expertise is in star and planet formation in stellar nurseries of interstellar clouds in galaxies like our Milky Way. Image

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More from @NASAHubble

Jan 24, 2022
Hello out there, @NASAWebb! 👋

Today, Webb entered its orbit around Lagrange point 2, or L2. That’s about a million miles away, and a whole lot farther than Hubble’s low-Earth orbit at just about 340 miles (547 km) up. Why do these two telescopes have such different orbits? ⬇️
🌡️ Infrared light = heat

To capture faint infrared wavelengths of light, Webb needs to be colder than Hubble. Detecting heat from faraway objects means Webb has to shield itself from the Sun, Earth, & Moon's infrared radiation – so it needs to be a lot farther out than Hubble!
🌎 Hubble orbits just above Earth’s murky atmosphere.

🌎 ☀️ Webb orbits the Sun with Earth. From its perspective, the Sun, Earth, and Moon will always be in the same part of the sky, allowing its enormous sunshield to block their light and keep the telescope cool.
Read 6 tweets
Jan 10, 2022
Have you heard the buzz? 🐝

@NASAWebb’s “honeycomb”-like mirror unfolded and the telescope is fully deployed!

Like Hubble, Webb is a reflecting telescope – meaning that it gathers light using huge mirrors rather than lenses. So how do the mirrors on Hubble and Webb compare? ⬇️
Size 📏

Webb’s primary mirror stretches ~21 ft (6.5 meters) across, while Hubble’s is ~8 ft (2.4 meters) across.

That gives Webb more than six times the light collecting area than Hubble has!
Despite its larger size, Webb will deliver about the same resolution in near-infrared light as Hubble attains in visible light.

The two telescopes will be able to “double-team” their observations of objects to provide us with spectacular, broad-spectrum views!
Read 6 tweets
Dec 24, 2021
📣 December 25 is a BIG day for astronomy!

With the launch of @NASAWebb, a new and exciting era of science awaits.

But how is Webb different from Hubble? How will these telescopes work together?

🧵 Read on... The golden mirrors of the James Webb Space Telescope shine
💡 Light

Hubble detects visible light (what our human eyes can see), along with some ultraviolet and near-infrared wavelengths.

Webb's extraordinary infrared vision will reveal longer and dimmer wavelengths of light, peering further into the universe and "back in time." The electromagnetic spectrum
Infrared light also pierces through dust and gas, as seen in these two Hubble views of the Eagle Nebula.

The left image is in visible light, and the right is infrared.

Find out more about light: go.nasa.gov/3qurOz0
Read 8 tweets
Aug 6, 2021
One of Hubble’s greatest legacies is its deep field images. But as much as we’ve learned from them, the deep field story is only beginning.

As we wrap up #DeepFieldWeek, find out what comes next in this thread ⬇️
When it launches later this year, @NASAWebb’s powerful infrared capabilities will provide deep and extraordinary views of our universe

Webb will detect “baby galaxies” and take us to within a stone’s throw of the Big Bang to observe the early universe: go.nasa.gov/3fDTzQM
Later this decade, @NASARoman will survey the universe and take staggering observations of wide swathes of space. Imagine dozens of Hubble deep fields in a single image!

That’s what Roman brings to the table: go.nasa.gov/3juaZ3u
Read 4 tweets
Aug 5, 2021
Time for a trip down memory lane…

🧵 Follow along this thread for a mini #DeepFieldWeek history lesson!

First up, we have the original Hubble Deep Field. Imaged in 1995, it took 10 days of exposure time to capture. In it, we could see about 3,000 galaxies! (Portion below)
In 2003 and 2004, Hubble captured a million-second-long exposure to create the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, which contains about 10,000 galaxies! 🤯

A new camera on Hubble called the Advanced Camera For Surveys made it possible to get such a deep, intricate view.
Later, to create the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field, Hubble revisited the same patch of sky over a decade for a total of 50 days!

One of the coolest parts? The universe is 13.7 billion years old, and this image spans 13.2 billion years of galaxy development.
Read 6 tweets
May 13, 2020
Just as cars need maintenance, sometimes spacecraft need fixing, too. 🛠️When astronauts work on spacecraft in orbit, it's called space servicing.

Have questions about servicing? Leave a reply in the comments for a Q&A from 12-2 p.m. EDT on 5/14 with astronauts and experts!
💡Fun fact! Astronauts traveled to the Hubble Space Telescope for five servicing missions. Their work is the reason why Hubble has lasted 30 years in space, showing us images of the universe as a more colorful and stranger place than we ever imagined. Image
Christy Hansen trained the EVA (spacewalk) astronauts who serviced the Hubble Space Telescope and supported them during real-time mission operations on orbit as an EVA flight controller. Christy will be answering some of your questions today! Image
Read 5 tweets

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