The Best of Hubble

I'm sure most of you have heard of the Hubble space telescope. Well, it has provided us with many spactacular images and knowledge on astronomy. However, they are considering not to sent a repair mission for it, and hence it will be decomissioned somewhere in 2007, which is quite sad.

Hubble's Future

Servicing Mission 4, the last scheduled flight of the space shuttle to the Hubble Space Telescope, has been cancelled. On Jan. 16, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe announced his decision to call off the mission, which would have performed Hubble maintenance work and installed new instruments. O'Keefe cited the new safety guidelines set out following the Columbia tragedy as the primary basis for his decision.

Hubble was designed to be visited periodically by astronauts who would perform repairs and install new equipment. Astronauts made several servicing visits to the telescope in the years after Hubble's launch in 1990. This final servicing mission would have taken place in 2006.

Click here for the full article.

But, even after its gone, its legacy will live on in the form of the beautiful pictures it has taken of space and the stars in it. And to celebrate all that this wonderful piece of technology has given us, here's a link to a nice slideshow of some of the best of Hubble's pictures. This is a spactacular set of pictures of distant galaxies and stars, so don't miss it!

The Best of Hubble
(Note: It takes a while to load but its well worth the wait.)