Star Points for October 2009 by Curtis Roelle The Recent Hubble Telescope Makeover In May, astronauts flying aboard the space shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-125 performed the fifth, and what is thought to be the final, servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Thanks to five long space walks, HST's longevity has been extended, and the orbiting telescope is returning improved, even more impressive images. Atlantis was piloted to Earth orbit and back by commander Scott Altman and pilot Gregory Johnson. After rendezvousing with HST, flight engineer Megan McArthur captured the telescope with the shuttle's remote manipulator arm. During 37 hours of repairs outside of Atlantis, "space walkers" John Grunsfeld, Andrew Feustel, Michael Massimino, and Michael Good repaired two science instruments and replaced two others. They also replaced certain HST engineering components, including gyroscopes, batteries, and guidance sensors. Up until this mission, the gorgeous images that have become representative of HST's legacy were taken by the Wide Field Camera 2 (WFC2) and the original Wide Field Planetary Camera (WFPC) that was replaced by WFC2 during an earlier repair mission. On STS-125 the astronauts replaced WFC2 with an improved Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). WFC3 has higher resolution and a wider field of view than its predecessor, and was designed to take even more breathtaking images of objects deep in the cosmos. During the several months preceding the launch date, NASA engineers calibrated and tested the new instruments. During this time an embargo was placed on image data coming in from the Hubble, preventing the release of any images until the telescope was fully ready to resume normal operations. In September, on the very day the embargo ended, Dr. Susana Deustua, of Baltimore's Space Telescope Science Institute, traveled to Westminster and shared HST's Early Release Observations with a delighted audience at the Westminster Astronomical Society's monthly meeting. The new WFC3 images were well worth waiting for. Examples of them can be viewed on the Web at this address: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2009/25/image/a/ . When HST was first launched in 1990, a major flaw was discovered in its optics. The first repair mission in 1993 installed a system of corrective optics called the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement, or COSTAR. Hubble's repaired vision enabled its long anticipated capability of high-resolution imaging. Three more repair missions were undertaken, in 1997, 1999, and 2002, prior to the fifth and final one this year. Hubble's demise will come as critical components wear out and fail. Already beyond its 15-year expected life, HST should operate for at least several more years thanks to the "house calls" by the shuttle fleet. NASA's next large space telescope is the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), currently scheduled for launch in 2014. JWST's 256-inch (6.5 meters) diameter mirror is even larger than the 200-inch mirror of the famous Hale telescope on Mt. Palomar near San Diego. By comparison, the HST mirror's diameter is 94.5 inches (about 2.4 meters). The JWST will have more than seven times the light-gathering ability than HST. One major difference is that the JWST will observe mostly in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, just below visible light. HST's observations, on the other hand, were primarily made in visible and ultraviolet light.