Over two decades in orbit
the Hubble Space Telescope has made a huge
number of observations.
Every week, we publish new ones
on the Hubble website.
But hidden in Hubble’s data archives
are some truly breathtaking images
that have hardly ever been seen.
We call them Hubble’s Hidden Treasures
and we’re looking for your help to bring them to light.
Episode 53: Hidden Treasures in Hubble's Archive
Presented by Dr J, aka Dr Joe Liske
Hello and welcome.
Now, usually in the Hubblecast we look up into space.
But in this episode we’ve got our feet firmly on the ground.
That’s because there’s a lot going on down here on Earth
in order to support what Hubble does up there in space.
One of the biggest parts of this is the Hubble Legacy Archive
a huge digital library of practically every observation Hubble has ever made.
Now that’s over a million observations.
So it’s not too surprising that it’s pretty hard to stay aware
of the full range of what’s in there.
Hubble’s instruments are a bit like giant digital cameras
with the telescope as their lens.
Just like digital cameras, Hubble produces a lot of data
about 3 to 400 gigabytes a month.
Obviously it wouldn’t be practical to send astronauts up to collect it all.
Instead, Hubble bristles with communications antennas
which beam the observations down to Earth.
But let’s step back a little.
What is all this information that is being beamed down?
And who looks at the data?
Getting observing time with Hubble is a privilege.
It takes a lot of hard work and insight
to prepare a successful set of observations.
To protect their investment, and give them the first stab
at working on their scientific idea
astronomers get a year to study their data before it's released to the public.
And that’s when many of the scientific discoveries you hear about get made.
But that first year is only the beginning for Hubble data.
Once it’s made public, absolutely anyone can have a look at it
and see what Hubble has been up to.
Often, astronomers will make big discoveries using these second-hand data
sometimes many years after they were observed.
For example, recent work on the growth of black holes
and the properties of dark matter has come from archival data.
In addition, comparing old data from the archive with new images from Hubble
lets scientists see how astronomical objects evolve over time.
A great example are Hubble’s movies of stellar jets
which we looked at in Hubblecast 49.
The Hubble Legacy Archive is priceless for astronomers — but it is not only for them.
Hubble doesn’t just belong to scientists, it belongs to us all.
Every week, we pick some of the nicest observations
from the Hubble Legacy Archive
process them to bring out their hidden detail
and share our choice as the Hubble Picture of the Week.
There are also amateur astronomers and hobbyists
who go through the archive themselves
and look for pretty datasets to process.
Now the archive is pretty big,
and there are still lots of undiscovered datasets in there to be found.
So if you want to lend us a hand, and find some of Hubble’s Hidden Treasures
check out our website, which explains how to do it.
It’s pretty simple once you get the hang of it
and we’ve prepared some tutorials to get you started.
To say thanks for helping us out
we’re running a competition between now and the end of May.
Find a great dataset and you’ll be in with a chance to win an iPod Touch.
And if you want to have a shot at processing the data
like the professionals do, you could win an iPad.
Check out the website for full details.
Finding Hidden Treasures in the archive is a lot of fun
and you can uncover some gems that have hardly ever been seen before.
Now I’ll be back in a future episode to showcase the best pictures you find.
But for now, this is Dr J signing off for the Hubblecast.
Once again, nature has surprised us beyond our wildest imagination.
Transcribed by ESA/Hubble.