[ad_1]
The great American observatories – the Hubble, Chandra, Compton and Spitzer space telescopes – have scrutinized the unknown and made decisive discoveries on newborn stars, dark matter and the age of the universe.
These telescopes, whose era began in 1990, are aging, if not dead, and there is no budget or political will to replace them.
This sobering reality was highlighted this month as two technical issues, including the Hubble Space Telescope, temporarily interrupted their science.
Reduced budgets and delayed projects mean that astronomers will lose some of their eyes in the sky before NASA can launch new telescopes. This will make some searches impossible.
"The reluctance to invest in a substantial science has begun to worry us," said astrophysicist Matt Mountain, president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, which operates the Hubble Telescope on behalf of The NASA. "We are facing a very discouraging prospect as a community. Some fields simply will not have a telescope. And science will not be possible to do otherwise. "
Some of the biggest questions in science – what is black energy? Does life exist beyond the solar system? – only large observatories working in certain parts of the light spectrum can answer them.
Investing in the research of these issues is a choice for the country, said Paul Hertz, director of astrophysics division at NASA. "Our missions will be influenced by the priorities of the community, as well as the funding choices made by the political system."
The system gave priority to the large observatory program when it was designed in the 1970s and 1980s – four telescope missions to cover the spectrum of light in the space. They were launched between 1990 and 2003.
There was the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory to capture the most energetic explosions of the universe. The Spitzer Space Telescope can search for infrared radiation from exoplanets and newborn stars. Chandra's X-ray observatory could probe the depths of black holes and uncover evidence of dark matter and dark energy.
The Hubble Space Telescope was the jewel of the program. Its huge light-collecting plate in ultraviolet and visible wavelengths helped determine the age of the universe, revealed black holes in the center of the galaxies and photographed the most distant objects seen.
Space telescopes are difficult to design and expensive to build. But they are necessary to have a clear overview of the cosmos. Even at night, the Earth's atmosphere distorts the light of space, making images blurry and other signals, especially gamma rays, impossible to see.
The concerted use of the fleet further increases the power of these telescopes. Last year, observations of Hubble, Chandra, Fermi and dozens of other telescopes allowed astronomers to confirm theories on fundamental physics when they observed the collision of two dead stars.
They can not always have this ability.
The Compton telescope was lost in 2001, when a problem with its gyroscope – which allows a telescope to turn and point something – forced the space agency to intentionally split it to the ground or risk that the spacecraft would Crumbles without control of the sky.
Spitzer, who is slowly moving away from Earth, will end his mission when he loses contact with next year. This loss was expected, but the difficulties with Hubble and Chandra this month were unimaginable.
None of the spacecraft's problems are fatal, NASA said. Chandra returned online a few days after a problem with one of his gyroscopes forced the telescope to go into secure mode.
Hubble, who has been hampered by another gyroscope-related problem, is expected to resume normal operations within a few weeks. NASA expects both telescopes to continue operating in the 2020s.
Despite everything, the brief touch of forgetfulness has left astronomers scared.
"People suddenly realized that Hubble would not live forever," said Tom Brown, Hubble Mission Manager at the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Chandra is 19 years old; Hubble is 28 years old.
Brown said his frenzied fellow astronomers had kept his phone ringing "nonstop" over the past two weeks. "They think about what will happen next."
The astrophysics program, valued at $ 1 billion a year, NASA pilots eight large telescopes intended to study the space beyond the solar system. Among them, all but one are in their "extended missions" – the bonus years beyond the period for which the spacecraft was originally designed.
The only NASA flagship space observatory under construction is the James Webb Space Telescope, whose golden cup is designed to capture the infrared radiation of the oldest objects in the universe.
NASA wanted Webb's mission to coincide with Hubble's. The launch of the $ 10 billion giant was delayed several times as the space agency deals with design problems and costly human errors. This year, NASA announced that Webb would not be launched until 2021 at the earliest, thus reducing the time for concerted observation.
NASA's next major project would be the wide-field infrared telescope, which also targets infrared wavelengths. In 2010, it was considered the top priority in astrophysics by the National Academy of Sciences. The funding from the observatory has been suspended since President Trump failed to use the telescope for his last two budget requests.
Research perspectives on other parts of the light spectrum are, at best, unclear. In case of Hubble's failure, Brown pointed out, there would be no visible or ultraviolet telescopes on this scale.
21516729
Source link
