Hubble Reprieve

You heard it on the news: NASA has reconsidered its decision to abandon the Hubble Space Telescope. A servicing mission is being planned for May 2008, to replace batteries and repair gyroscopes. With this work, the HST is expected to be able to stay in service through 2013, when its replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, will be launched. NASA's press release about the mission.

The Hubble images below are featured on the Hubble News Release Archive Page for 2006. It's such a relief that this wildly successful astronomical instrument is going to be given a longer working life, producing more pure knowledge and more images like the ones below, or the Antennae Galaxies picture NASA featured earlier this week (click for a really big one). The library also has a good many books about the HST, most of them stuffed with beautiful images.