Lancastria.net Yea Blackburn!

Atlantis’ astronauts repaired and upgraded the Hubble Space Telescope, conducting five spacewalks during their mission to extend the life of the orbiting observatory. They successfully installed two new instruments and repaired two others, bringing them back to life, replaced gyroscopes and batteries, and added new thermal insulation panels to protect the orbiting observatory. The result is six working, complementary science instruments with capabilities beyond what was available and an extended operational lifespan until at least 2014.

STS-125 Mission

With the newly installed Wide Field Camera, Hubble will be able to observe in ultraviolet and infrared spectrums as well as visible light, peer deep onto the cosmic frontier in search of the earliest star systems and study planets in the solar system. The telescope’s new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph will allow it to study the grand-scale structure of the universe, including the star-driven chemical evolution that produce carbon and the other elements necessary for life.

Nebula NGC 6302

Despite it resemblance to a dainty butterfly, this image actually shows roiling cauldrons of superheated gas tearing across space at almost a million kilometres an hour – the death throes of a star, planetary nebula NGC 6302.

Globular star cluster Omega Centauri

Hundreds and thousands: Colourful stars inside globular star cluster Omega Centauri. The image is just a small region inside the cluster, which contains nearly 10m stars between 10bn and 12bn years old.

Markarian 817 galaxy

Rings of brilliant blue stars encircle the bright, active core of this spiral galaxy. The galaxy, called Markarian 817, shows intense star-forming regions and dark bands of interstellar dust along its spiral arms. Observations by the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph captured the powerful outflow of material.

Stephan's Quintet

Stephan’s Quintet: A group of five galaxies containing stars across a wide colour range, from young blue stars to ageing red stars. This image was captured by the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 aboard Hubble. ‘Stephan’s Quintet’ is a bit of a misnomer … galaxy NGC 7320, upper left, is actually about seven times closer to Earth than the rest of the group.

Carina Nebula

These two images of the stellar nursery that is the Carina Nebula demonstrate how observations in visible and infrared light reveal dramatically different views of an object. The pictures show the broad wavelength range of Hubble’s new Wide Field Camera 3, extending from ultraviolet to visible to infrared. Details not seen at visible wavelengths are uncovered in near-infrared light.