USA TODAY Collegiate Case Study: The Hubble Legacy - Part 4

8/9/2019 USA TODAY Collegiate Case Study: The Hubble Legacy - Part 4

1/4

The Hubble Legacy

Part Four: The Rewards

Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division o Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reserved.

In collaboration with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Todd Halvorson, Florida Todayor USA TODAYDecember 26, 1995

The Hubble Space Telescope once was the butt o late-nighttelevision jokes. Nobodys laughing now.

The once myopic orbiting obser-vatory, outtted two years ago thismonth with a $ 629 million pair ocontact lenses, is more than livingup to its prelaunch hype.

The reasons include the discoveryo another planet orbiting a star,proo that black holes exist andstunning pictures o comet chunkssmashing into Jupiter.

Theres no question that its be-come the agship o Americanastronomy, said Terry Oswalt,a proessor o physics and spacescience at the Florida Institute oTechnology.

Oh its so sweet, said DavidLeckrone, senior Hubble projectscientist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Green-belt, Md.

I mean, to eel like weve successully come back rom ad-versity, it transcends science. Its a personal thing.

Adversity or the $ 2 billion Hubble project began in June1990, two months ater the launch o the space telescopedesigned to enable astronomers to peer to the edge o theuniverse. It was supposed to answer ancient questions aboutthe age o the universe, and whether it would expand or-

ever or collapse upon itsel in a Great Crunch.

Then came spherical aberration - NASA jargon or blurryvision.

Devastated astronomers discovered that the telescopes8-oot primary mirror had been ground ten-thousandths oan inch too at, or about one-tieth o the diameter o ahuman hair. As a result, Hubble was as nearsighted as Mr.Magoo.

Images o stars and galaxies came back blurry, and the proise o Hubble seemed to collapse. But two years later caThe Big Fix.

In December 1993, astronauts outtted Hubble with crective lenses, a more powerul planetary camera, n

power-producing solar arrays aequipment that would enable telescope to point with greater acracy. The scientic returns ranhave been antastic, Oswalt said.

The stream o discoveries since Hbles repair includes:

Black holes: These objects thought to have such a powergravitational pull that nothing, even light, can escape their grasp

Scientists theorized that black hoare the engines that keep galaxand their billions o stars together

Soon ater Hubbles repair, astro

mers ocused it on M87, a galaxymillion light-years rom Earth. Th

ound clear evidence o a black hole: a whirlpool o dust, and stars being drawn into a pitch-black vortex, a galaccore that had a mass equal to 3 billion suns.

Cosmic hula hoops: One o the most intensely studied lestial objects in recent history has been Supernova 198a star over the Southern Hemisphere that exploded 170,0light-years rom Earth.

It wasnt until Hubble zoomed in on it that astronomdiscovered giant, colorul rings orbiting the remains o

obliterated star. The glowing red loops rotated and wobbaround the supernova core like mystical hula hoops.

Smash hits on Jupiter: A trail o 21comet chunks collided with Jupiter inJuly 1994, leaving scientists in awe.

The once-troubled Hubble ying high

Orion Nebula Courtesty o NASA/Hubble Space Telescope


2/4Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division o Gannett Co., Inc. All rights reserved.


Page 2

The Hubble Legacy


The comet ragments hit Jupiters atmosphere at up to130,000 mph, sending up mushroom clouds and reballs930 miles high.

Destructive enough to vaporize a major metropolitanarea, the collisions weresaid to be similar to one thathammered Earth 65 millionyears ago. It theoreticallysent up a massive cloud oash that choked o sunlightand killed 70% o the speciesliving at the time, includingall dinosaurs.

The birth o other planets:Hubble astronomers tookpictures showing that atleast hal the newborn starsin the Orion Nebula are sur-rounded by at, dusty rounddisks that could turn intoplanets.

What we learned rom thatis that the basic conditions inwhich planets might orm mightbe extremely common around newborn stars, said Steve

Maran, a Hubble project scientist at Goddard Space FlightCenter. And that eventually could help us make a judg-ment on whether we are alone.

A star is born: Astronomers this all witnessed the birtho stars within monstrous columns o gas and dust in theEagle Nebula, a region 7,000 light-years away rom Earth inthe constellation Serpens.

The gaseous towers, each 6 trillion miles long, resemblestalagmites rising rom a cavern oor.

At their tips are nger-like protrusions, each o which holda newborn star in what astronomers named EGGs - Evapo

rating Gaseous Globules.

While the Hubble is answering ancient questions and conrminglong-held theories, it also is creatinconundrums.

Astronomers long have said the universe was created in a primordiaexplosion called The Big Bang 15

to 20 billion years ago. Hubble datahave shown that stars in the MilkyWay galaxy appear to be at least 12billion to 14 billion years old. Recenobservations, however, indicate thuniverse itsel might only be 8 billion to 9 billion years old.

How can you have stars that areolder than the universe? Oswalsaid.

The puzzle is but one o the holy grails astronomers wil

be seeking during the next decade o star-hunting withHubble, which is expected to operate in orbit until at leas2005.

The act is that weve just barely scratched the surace,Maran said. We have barely begun to look around.

Orion Nebula Courtesty o NASA/Hubble Space Telescope




Page 3

The Hubble Legacy


Larry Wheeler, Gannett News ServiceOctober 24, 1997

WASHINGTON The same technology that allows theHubble space telescope to unlock secrets hidden in gal-axies millions o light years away is already making breastcancer detection more accurate and less painul on Earth.

Similarly, a robotic brain surgery device developed or use

by an astronaut physician on a uture trip to Mars mayeventually allow doctors to perorm even more precisebreast surgery procedures at less cost and with even bet-ter outcomes.

Such is the promise o merging the technological prowesso the nations civilian space agency with the medical ex-pertise at the Department o Health and Human Services,according to government ofcials.

I we can see the surace o Mars with the Hubble spacetelescope, then lets get a dividend rom our national in-vestment in space by transerring technologies to improve

the early detection o breast cancer and to ght other dis-eases in women, said Dr. Susan Blumenthal, deputy as-sistant secretary or womens health issues and assistantsurgeon general or Health and Human Services.

Blumenthal and Henry McDonald, director o NASAs AmesResearch Center, signed a cooperative agreement Thurs-day to bring the two agencies closer together in the ghtagainst breast cancer and other womens diseases.

NASA Administrator Dan Goldin suggested the agreementshould silence critics who question why U.S. astronautscontinue to serve aboard the crippled Russian space sta-

tion Mir and challenge spending billions on a new Interna-tional Space Station.

NASA ingenuity develops machines and methods to treatsick astronauts on the way to the Moon and Mars, Goldinsaid. We should also use that talent to make a concertedeort to save our wives, mothers, sisters, daughters andriends whose lives are aected by cancers and other dis-eases.

In January, NASA plans to send its so-called bioreactor toMir where it will perorm as a high-tech incubator or hu-man breast cancer tissue. Researchers anticipate learningmuch rom the experiment designed to use the micrograv-ity environment o space to oster tumor growth that cantbe achieved in a at, laboratory petri dish back on Earth.

The agreement provided no new unding or breast can-

cer research but instead created a cooperative rameworkbetween NASAs Ames Research Center in Caliornia andthe Department o Health and Human Services Ofce onWomens Health.

On display at the event in the Cannon House ofce buildingand at a luncheon in the Capitol building were examples oNASA-developed medical products under development oralready at work in hospitals.

Some examples:

Digital imaging technology developed or Hubble is al-

ready working at more than 350 medical acilities insidethe LORAD Stereo Guide Breast Biopsy System which o-ers women a quick and less painul method or determin-ing i a breast lump is malignant. The procedure costs $850vs. a traditional breast biopsy surgery charge o approxi-mately $3,500.

-- An instrument designed to study the Earths atmosphererom space is being converted to provide superior new im-ages o the entire breast while accommodating dierenttissue density. An instrument unhampered by tissue densi-ty is important because younger women have more densebreast tissue than older women.

Technology that allows the Mars Pathnder to delivercrisp pictures is being modied to make three-dimension-al models o breast tissue, giving physicians the ability todierentiate between cancerous and healthy tissue with-out painul, invasive procedures.

Several members o the Congressional Caucus on WomensIssues praised the agreement.

Technology used in Hubble telescope helps

detect breast cancer more accurately



Page 4

The Hubble Legacy


NASA already has an impressive record o transerring itstechnological discoveries to the private sector, said Rep.

Anna Eschoo, D-Cali., whose congressional district hoststhe Ames Research Center. The new interagency agree-ment will help rene the space agencys technologies andapply them to the specic health care needs o women,such as cancer, reproductive health, osteoporosis and edu-cation.

Breast cancer is the leading cause o death o women ages35 to 50 in the United States. Each year, more than 180,000new cases o breast cancer are diagnosed and more than500,000 breast biopsies are perormed.

Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., and his wie, Priscilla, spoke at the

luncheon about their personal experiences with cancer andthe value o early detection and continued research.

Priscilla Mack described how she ound a lump in her breastby accident and urged women not to leave their health tochance. Practice sel-exams, see your physician at leastonce a year and ollow recommended breast exam guide-lines, she said.

Mack later had reconstructive surgery. She is now a tirelessadvocate or early detection.

Sen. Mack said his brother Michaels 12-year struggle withmelanoma was the motivating actor that led him to seekpublic ofce. Ater his brothers death and shortly ater win-ning his senate seat, Mack himsel ound out he had mel-anoma but survived because his cancer had been caughtearly enough.

Mack said continued ederally sponsored cancer research isessential to beating the disease in all its orms. The FloridaRepublican has introduced a resolution to double spendingon cancer research at the National Institutes o Health.

Weve got to double the NIH budget, Mack said. I dontwant another husband, another brother to have to hear thewords I heard and go through what we went through.


Documents

USA TODAY Collegiate Case Study: The Hubble Legacy - Part 4