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Hubble is the Jay-Z of telescopes, the space observatory simply doesn’t want to retire.
Though it was supposed to hang the mirror this year, the Hubble Space Telescope has instead taken on a daunting new task: to catalog all the stars in the Milky Way and other stars in nearby galaxies.
This will be the largest telescope observation effort in 30 years.
The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland has launched a new initiative with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to produce a library of spectral models of young low-mass stars from eight star-forming regions in the Milky Way and high-mass stars in nearby dwarf galaxies.
The new project, titled ULLYSES (UV Legacy Library of Young Stars as Essential Standards), will take place in 1,000 Hubble orbits around the Earth, which takes about 97 minutes.
Once you’ve cataloged the targeted stars, the final product is likely to include details on around 300 stars.
“One of the key goals of ULLYSES is to form a comprehensive reference sample that can be used to create spectral libraries that capture the diversity of stars, ensuring a legacy dataset for a wide range of astrophysical topics,” Julia Roman-Duval, program manager behind ULLYSES said in a statement.
“ULLYSES is expected to have a lasting impact on the future research of astronomers around the world.”
The ULLYSES program takes advantage of Hubble’s unique imaging capabilities, as both high-mass and low-mass stars have different complex ultraviolet (UV) emission processes that impact their surroundings. They are also difficult to model, according to the researchers.
Young stars radiate a lot of energy in UV emissions as they feed on the surrounding gas and dust.
Hubble is the right telescope for the job. The space telescope sits above Earth’s atmosphere, which filters out most of the UV radiation from space before it reaches ground-based telescopes.
Space legacy – Stars are the main building blocks of the universe, releasing heavy chemical elements that power their galaxies.
By creating a catalog that includes the spectral models of stars, astronomers hope to gain a better understanding of how stars are born and how they affect the formation and growth of planets and galaxies around them.
“This unique collection allows for diverse and exciting astrophysics research in many fields,” said Roman-Duval.
The team behind ULLYSeS is designing new software that would allow them to create databases and web interfaces to share the catalog with the wider astrophysics community to ensure access to the initiative’s data.
Hubble forever – The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains one of the largest and most versatile space telescopes to date.
The telescope has been in operation for 30 years and is scheduled for long-awaited retirement. It was originally supposed to go offline this year, but the date has been moved to the year 2025.
Hubble is expected to be replaced by the James Webb Telescope, which has been in the works for more than a decade.
The James Webb Telescope has already experienced many delays, with an initial launch window scheduled for 2018, which was later postponed to 2020, although it has not stood still.
Now, NASA has set a launch date for October 31, 2021.
If it finally reaches space, the James Webb Telescope will be the most powerful space telescope ever designed, with an unprecedented ability to observe distant objects in the universe, explaining the history of the cosmos.
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