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WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Hubble space telescope, the object of NASA's fifth and last servicing mission next week, is a veritable time machine that has revolutionized humankind's vision and comprehension of the universe. Put into orbit at an altitude of 600 kilometers (360 miles) by the shuttle Discovery on April 25, 1990, Hubble has transmitted more than 750,000 spectacular images and streams of data from the ends of the universe, opening a new era in astronomy. But the telescope, the fruit of a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, had a troubled start and did not become operational...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – After months of delay, NASA cleared space shuttle Atlantis for a Monday launch to the Hubble Space Telescope. Mission managers concluded Saturday that Atlantis is ready to take off on the long-awaited Hubble repair mission, the fifth and final one. Shuttle Endeavour is also in good shape at the other launch pad; it's on standby in case Atlantis is damaged during the flight and its seven astronauts need to be rescued. Weather forecasters gave good odds for launching Atlantis: 80 percent. What's more, things were looking more encouraging at the emergency landing site in Spain, where...

Final preparations are under way for NASA's planned launch next week of the space shuttle Atlantis to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. The weather looks promising for the shuttle's planned liftoff May 11 at 2:01 p.m. EDT (1802 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Shuttle weather officer Kathy Winters predicted an 80 percent chance of favorable weather that day, with a small risk of clouds or showers that could prevent a launch. If the shuttle is unable to lift off Monday, NASA can try again May 12 and May 13, though there is only a...

Just discovered that the Science Station will broadcast a show before and during the Hubble Repair Mission launch next Monday. Show will start at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. This mission, if it's successful, will increase all of Hubble's information gathering capacity by 10 to 30 times.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA has chosen May 11 as the launch date for its last repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, not seen up close for seven years. Space shuttle Atlantis is set to blast off then on the highly awaited 11-day flight, considered one of the most challenging yet. ... Atlantis' crew will conduct five spacewalks to replace and repair science instruments at Hubble, and install new equipment that should keep the orbiting telescope running for another five to 10 years.

March 6, 2003: The central region of the small galaxy NGC 1705 blazes with the light of thousands of young and old stars in this image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. At 17 million light-years away, the individual stars of the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 1705 are out of range of all but the sharp eyes of Hubble. NGC 1705 is classified as a dwarf irregular because it is small and lacks any regular structure. Q & A: Understanding the Discovery 1. Why did astronomers use the Hubble telescope to observe this galaxy? NGC 1705 is an ideal laboratory...

To commemorate almost two decades of photographing the wonders of the universe, the Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of a peculiar group of interacting galaxies that contains a "cosmic fountain" of stars, gas and dust that stretches about 100,000 light years. Over the past 19 years, Hubble has taken many images of galactic collisions and close encounters. The new image of a trio of galaxies, called Arp 194, looks as if of the galaxies has sprung a leak. The bright blue streamer seen in the image is really a stretched spiral arm full of newborn blue stars. This stellar...

Hubble telescope’s top ten greatest space photographs “…they illustrate that our universe is not only deeply strange, but also almost impossibly beautiful.” Michael Hanlon/AH (Nov 25th, 2006) After correcting an initial problem with the lens, when the Hubble Space Telescope was first launched in 1990, the floating astro-observatory began to relay back to Earth, incredible snapshots of the “final frontier” it was perusing. Recently, astronauts voted on the top photographs taken by Hubble, in its 16-year journey so far. Remarking in the article from the Daily Mail, reporter Michael Hanlon says the photos “illustrate that our universe is not only...

The Trifid Nebula. A 'stellar nursery', 9,000 light years from here, it is where new stars are being born. The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation. Starry Night, so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – The space shuttle that will carry NASA's last crew to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope was moved to its Florida launch pad on Tuesday in preparation for liftoff on May 12. Shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven astronauts were due to launch six months ago, but the failure of a computer aboard Hubble prompted NASA to delay the flight. Replacing the computer, which prepares data from Hubble's science instruments to be relayed back to Earth, was added to the long list of chores the astronauts will tackle during five days of spacewalks. Hubble, which...

Hubble's greatest hits: Hubble space telescope images

It appears that the Hubble might end up as collateral damage from the recent collision between an Iridium and Russian satellite. Without another service mission, the Hubble may meet its end within a year or two.The collision has sent more than 600 pieces of debris whizzing around the Earth at 17,500 mph. At those speeds, shards can take out a spacecraft (and you don't even want to think about what it could do to astronauts on a spacewalk). NASA has calculated the chance of a catastrophic impact at around 1 in 185—just below their 1 in 200 threshold. A decision...

Worst-ever orbital collision leads to calls for tighter regulation.A cloud of debris spreading through low Earth orbit following the collision of two satellites poses a new risk to many scientific missions and may signal the demise of the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA is monitoring the increased threat carefully, and if it is as bad as some fear, the agency may have to cancel the proposed shuttle-servicing mission slated for later this year. Without that mission, the telescope's days are numbered, even if none of the new debris comes anywhere close to it.At 04:56 GMT on 10 February an active communications...

The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted an exoplanet in an image that was captured 10 years ago, which raises hope that more planets lie buried in Hubbles vast archive. In 1998, Hubble studied the star HR 8799 in the infrared, as part of a search for planets around young and relatively nearby stars. The search came up empty. Last year, Christian Marois of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and colleagues looked at the same star using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii. They discovered three planets, each about 10 times as massive as Jupiter. They...

"A total of 14 young stars racing through clouds of gas like bullets, creating brilliant arrowhead structures and tails of glowing gas, have been revealed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. They represent a new type of runaway stars, scientists say. The discovery of the speedy stars by Hubble, announced here today at the 213th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, came as something of a shock to the astronomers who found them."

It's been quite a year for Hubble! New galaxies, colliding stars and more... Check out the magnificent views through NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, released in 2008. Above, Hubble discovers carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star, an important step along the trail of finding the chemical biotracers of extraterrestrial life as we know it. The Jupiter-sized planet, called HD 189733b, is too hot for life. But the Hubble observations are a proof-of-concept demonstration that the basic chemistry for life can be measured on planets orbiting other stars. Organic compounds can also be a by-product of life...

Carbon dioxide has been seen on a hot planet outside our solar system -- another piece of evidence supporting the possibility that life could develop elsewhere... NASA said its Hubble Space Telescope has discovered carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of "hot Jupiter" planet ...which orbits a nearby star 63 light-years from Earth. The planet is itself too hot to support life -- its surface is about 1,800 degrees F ... But the astronomers said the observations are a proof-of-concept demonstration that the basic chemistry for life can be measured on planets orbiting other stars. In March, they found the ingredients...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered both carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of a distant planet, in a key step for finding extraterrestrial life, the space agency said Tuesday. Detecting organic compounds that can be a by-product of life processes on an Earth-like body could one day "provide the first evidence of life beyond our planet," NASA said in a statement. The discovery was made on a Jupiter-size planet 63 light years away from Earth that is too hot for life, and is all gas and liquid. "We're not closer to discovering life on...

The first-ever pictures of planets outside the solar system have been released in two studies. Using the latest techniques in space technology, astronomers at NASA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used direct-imaging techniques to capture pictures of four newly discovered planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. "After all these years, it's amazing to have a picture showing not one but three planets," said physicist Bruce Macintosh of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. "The discovery of the HR 8799 system is a crucial step on the road to the ultimate detection of another Earth," he said....

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star. Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis, or the "Southern Fish."Fomalhaut has been a candidate for planet hunting ever since an excess of dust (a telltale sign of planet formation) was discovered around the star in the early 1980s by NASA's Infrared Astronomy Satellite, IRAS. In 2004, the coronagraph in the High Resolution Camera on Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys produced...