Latest Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer Stories

NASA said on Thursday that astronomers have found evidence for two extrasolar planets using Hubble Space Telescope data from 1998. Using old Hubble images gives astronomers an invaluable time machine for comparing earlier planet orbital motion data to more recent observations, according to the space agency. Star HR8799 has four giant planets orbiting around it, three of which were discovered in 2007 and 2008 in near-infrared ground-based images taken by astronomers at W.M. Keck...

BOULDER, Colo., Dec. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. announced today that the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite built for NASA successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 6:09:33 a.m. on board a Boeing Delta II rocket. Ball Aerospace designed and built the WISE spacecraft, led all satellite level testing and is supporting operations under contract to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The WISE RS-300 spacecraft...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Astronomers declared NASA's Hubble Space Telescope a fully rejuvenated observatory with the release Wednesday of observations from four of its six operating science instruments. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., unveiled the images at NASA Headquarters in Washington. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) Topping the list of new views are colorful, multi-wavelength pictures of far-flung galaxies, a densely packed star...

Astronomers declared NASA's Hubble Space Telescope a fully rejuvenated observatory with the release Wednesday of observations from four of its six operating science instruments. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., unveiled the images at NASA Headquarters in Washington.Topping the list of new views are colorful, multi-wavelength pictures of far-flung galaxies, a densely packed star cluster, an eerie "pillar of creation," and a "butterfly" nebula. Hubble's suite of new...

Hubble is getting closer to completing the calibrations for most of its instruments, and each day it draws nearer to becoming a fully functioning observatory again. In fact, in the upcoming weeks, Hubble will concentrate on making high-priority science observations and then finish the remaining instrument calibrations by early fall.The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) still has a few checkouts to complete, but it is now taking science images on a regular basis.The Space Telescope Imaging...

BOULDER, Colo., May 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Astronauts for NASA's STS-125 servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) installed two science instruments built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. during their 13-day mission and completed critical repairs to two previously installed Ball science instruments. Space Shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven landed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on Sunday, May 24. The Wide Field Camera 3 was installed during the first...

First results from the GOODS NICMOS survey, the largest Hubble Space Telescope program ever led from outside of the United States, reveal how the most massive galaxies in the early Universe assembled to form the most massive objects in the Universe today. Dr Chris Conselice from the University of Nottingham will present the results at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science at the University of Hertfordshire on Wednesday 22nd April.The observations are part of the Great Observatories...

A powerful, newly refined image-processing technique may allow astronomers to discover extrasolar planets that are possibly lurking in over a decade's worth of Hubble Space Telescope archival data.David Lafreniere of the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, has successfully demonstrated this new strategy for planet hunting by identifying an exoplanet that went undetected in Hubble images taken in 1998 with its Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). In addition to...

During the night of Oct. 15, Space Telescope Operations Control Center engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center turned on and checked out Side "˜B' of Hubble's Science Instrument Control and Data Handling (SIC&DH) system.Subsequently, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) and Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) instruments were retrieved from safe mode to establish that each has a working interface to the Side B...

Hubble -- Unique follow up observations carried out with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are providing important supporting evidence for the existence of a candidate planetary companion to a relatively bright young brown dwarf star located 225 light-years away in the southern constellation Hydra.Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile detected the planet candidate in April 2004 with infrared observations using adaptive optics to sharpen their view....