But the predecessor of the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescopeit shows us why we should not forget it. NASA and ESA, which co-manage Hubble, have just released (opens in new tab) a new impressive picture of him globular cluster NGC 6638, a star cluster in the constellation Sagittarius. The image was created from observations by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Before Hubble, it was almost impossible to distinguish individual stars in a globular cluster, which is a dense collection of ancient stars numbering from tens of thousands to millions. Because ground-based telescopes must look through Earth’s atmosphere to see the stars, their view can sometimes be distorted. That’s less of a problem for Hubble, which orbits Earth 340 miles (547 kilometers) above the surface. By comparison, Webb is about 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, much further although it operates primarily in the infrared spectrum, while Hubble operates in the visible light spectrum.) This means that Hubble is technically inside the atmosphere, which extends 6,200 miles (10,00 km). In fact, it’s pretty close to it astronauts can visit to carry out repairs. (Or at least they could when the shuttle flew.) But Hubble is at a point where the atmosphere is so thin that it doesn’t obscure the observatory’s view of the stars. As such, Hubble has played a key role in globular cluster research and continues to make new discoveries regularly. While Hubble is already more than 30 years old, the telescope still has plenty of life left in it, and scientists will continue to use it in conjunction with the James Webb Telescope to answer the biggest questions about the universe. The new image was released on August 1st. Follow Stefanie Waldek on Twitter @StefanieWaldek (opens in a new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) and then Facebook (opens in a new tab).
