ACS And Other Devices Into Hubble

What is ACS The Survey Camera?

Once Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) started functioning, astronomers had no idea that the pictures ACS had taken changed the view of the universe.

Two decades into its mission, ACS continues to deliver stunning images. There are more than 125,000 drawings and many discoveries.

One such example is the spectacular galaxy called the Tadpole (UGC 10214). Astronomers photographed Tadpoles shortly after ACS installation to demonstrate the camera's capabilities. With its long stellar tail, the Tadpole looks like an escaping pinwheel fireworks. But what's truly stunning is the backdrop — a tapestry full of 6,000 galaxies captured by ACS cameras.

In January 2007, an electronic malfunction rendered two of the most widely used channels in ACS inoperable. Thanks to the ingenuity of the space explorers on Hubble Servicing Mission 4 (STS-125) repairing the Wide Field Channel, which was credited with doing 70 percent of the work of pre-2007 ACS. However, the High Resolution Channel cannot be fixed. Yet, two decades into its mission, ACS continues to deliver scientific breakthroughs. Even if it's broken, it can still contribute.

Ultra Deep Field

Needless to say, the ACS observations reveal a series of portraits of the deepest universe humankind has ever achieved. In the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), launched in 2004, ACS worked closely with Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-object Spectrometer (NICMOS) to capture light from galaxies as far back as 13 billion years ago or about 400 to 800 million years. after the Big Bang.

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This million-second exposure reveals new insights into some of the first galaxies to emerge from the so-called "dark ages," the time shortly after the Big Bang when the first stars reheated the cold, dark universe.

In newer versions, ACS in collaboration with other Hubble instruments is refining the depth and range of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. These portraits push the human view of the universe back to 435 million years after the Big Bang, capturing images of the earliest objects in the universe. They have changed our view of the universe and spawned countless collaborations.

Frontier Field

Following the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, Frontier Fields extends Hubble's reach even further with the help of a giant cosmic lens in outer space.

The immense gravity of large clusters of galaxies bends light from galaxies even further beyond, distorting and magnifying the light until the galaxies — too faint for Hubble to see directly — become visible.

Frontier Fields combines the power of Hubble with the power of this "natural telescope" to reveal galaxies that are 10 to 100 times fainter than Hubble alone can see. Astronomers simultaneously used ACS for visible light imaging and Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 for infrared vision.

Hubble Is Gone Anywhere?

Over the course of three years, Hubble circled Earth 840 times – more than 1,330 hours – for six galaxy clusters and six “parallel planes” – regions near galaxy clusters. While this parallel plane cannot be used for gravitational lenses.

Hubble made “deep” observations on them – looking deep into the depths of space. Through the power of the gravitational lens, Hubble peered deeper than ever before. while parallel field observations expand knowledge of the early universe starting with the Hubble Deep Fields and Hubble Ultra Deep Fields.

What Do We Gain Knowledge of the Universe?

Unraveling the Mystery of Pluto in Detail

Capture detailed pictures of Pluto. It was the first time we'd seen the dwarf planet Pluto in years before it flew past New Horizons. The images reveal a cold, mottled, dark molasses-colored world that undergoes seasonal changes in surface brightness and brightness.

Understanding the Light Echo of the V838 Monocerotis

The ACS captures an unusual phenomenon in space called light echoes, in which light from an erupting star reflects or “echoes” off dust and then travels to Earth. The echo came from the variable star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon). In early 2002, V838 Mon temporarily increased its brightness to 600,000 times brighter than our Sun. The cause of the eruption is still unclear.

The light from V838 Mon spreads out through the dust cloud surrounding the star. Due to the extra distance the scattered light travels. The light reached Earth years after the star's explosion.

The ACS monitors the light from stellar explosions for several years as it continues to reflect off the shell of dust that surrounds the star. This phenomenon is analogous to the sound produced when the voice of an Alpine yodeler reverberates across the slopes of a nearby mountain.

The spectacular light echoes allow astronomers to see the constantly changing cross-section of the dust around the star. This is a dramatic illustration of the power of ACS and Hubble to monitor phenomena over time. The longevity and consistency of ACS is critical for this type of research.

The Mysterious Fomalhaut

In 2008, ACS made the first visible light snapshot of what was initially thought to be a planet, dubbed Fomalhaut b, orbiting the near, bright southern star Fomalhaut.

The small-looking object appears as a dot next to the large ring of icy debris that ACS observes surrounding Fomalhaut.

In the following years, the researchers tracked the object along its trajectory. Over time, the dot widens and becomes dimmer as it disappears from view. Instead of a planet, it is now thought to be an expanding cloud of very fine dust particles from two icy bodies colliding with each other, according to several researchers. The nature of the object is still being debated, and further study may unravel this mystery.

V838 Monoceroti became the brightest star in the entire Milky Way Galaxy caught in January 2002. Then, suddenly, it faded away.

Now Know There Will Be A Milky Way And Andromeda Galaxy Collision

By measuring the tiny sideways motion of a group of stars in our neighboring galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy , the ACS provides knowledge of the universe by enabling astronomers to unravel the mystery and calculate that Andromeda and our Milky Way will collide head-on in about 4 billion years from now.

Andromeda, also known as M31, is now 2.5 million light-years away, but is falling toward the Milky Way under the mutual gravitational pull between the two galaxies. The prediction is that they will merge into one elliptical galaxy similar to the kind commonly seen throughout the universe.

1689 . Abell Galaxy Cluster Gravity Lens

In 2002, ACS provided an unprecedented and dramatic new look at the cosmos when it demonstrated the power of gravitational lenses.

The ACS peered directly through the center of one of the most massive galaxy clusters known, called Abell 1689. The gravity of the cluster's trillions of stars — plus dark matter — acts as a "lens" 2 million light-years wide in space. This gravitational lens bends and magnifies the light of a galaxy far behind it, distorting its shape and creating multiple images of individual galaxies.

The sharpness of the ACS, combined with this gigantic natural lens, reveals that distant galaxies were previously beyond even Hubble's reach. The results explain the evolution of galaxies and dark matter in outer space.

Understanding About Mature and “Toddler”

Using ACS to look back on nearly 9 billion years, an international team of astronomers discovered mature galaxies in the young universe. Galaxies are members of a group of galaxies that existed when the universe was only 5 billion years old.

Convincing evidence that galaxies must have started forming right after the Big Bang is supported by observations made by the same team of astronomers as they peered further into the past.

The team discovered the galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the birth of the cosmos. The early galaxies were in a developing cluster, the most distant proto-cluster ever discovered.

ACS was built specifically to study such distant objects. These findings further support observations and theories that galaxies formed relatively early in the history of the cosmos.

The existence of massive clusters like this in the early universe fits the cosmological model in which clusters formed from the merger of many sub-clusters in a universe dominated by cold dark matter.

Hints About an Inflating Universe With Dark Energy

Astronomers using the ACS unravel the mystery of discovering supernovae that explode for so long that they provide new clues about the accelerating universe and its mysterious "dark energy."

ACS can pick out the faint glow of this supernova that is very far away. The Advanced Camera for Surveys can then dissect their light to measure their distance, study how they fade, and confirm that they are a special type of exploding star, called a Type Ia supernova, which is a reliable indicator of distance.

Type Ia supernovae shine at a predictable peak brightness, which makes them reliable objects for calibrating large intergalactic distances.

In 1998, Hubble astronomers discovered a supernova so far away that it gave the unexpected revelation that galaxies appear to be moving away from each other at ever-increasing speeds.

They attribute this accelerated expansion to a mysterious factor known as dark energy that is believed to permeate the universe. Since being installed, the Advanced Camera for Surveys has been hunting for Type Ia supernovae in the early universe to provide evidence to support this theory.

Who is the Manager?

The Hubble Space Telescope is an international collaborative project between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, DC. (Sekarangsayatahu)