Rendezvous with Hubble

Atlantis Launch Video (Credit:NASA)

Mission began with roaring of Atlantis into sky from Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida on May 11 Monday.On the following day, crew members inspected heat ceramic tiles with a robotic arm and reported some scratches which were declared harmless by experts in Houston Control Center. Atlantis finally caught with the Hubble Space Telescope on Wednesday. This was a two-step process in which Hubble was secured by a robotic arm first (see picture) and then Flight Engineer Megan McArthur successfully lowered it into the shuttle's cargo bay onto the Flight Support System, or FSS. Another feat, though not so mission critical, was Mike Massimino becoming the first astronaut to tweet from space (view Massimino twitter feed).   

ATLANTIS READY TO MAKE HUBBLE MORE POWERFUL

Atlantis ready to lift off and Endeavour in the back ready to rescue (Credit: NASA)

Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to liftoff  from Kenedy Space Center, Florida on Monday, May 11 to service the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for the last time. Over a course of 11 days, the seven member crew will carry out five spacewalks to install two new instruments, repair two inactive ones and perform the component replacement that will keep the telescope functioning into 2014. Best wishes to the seven brave astronauts who made a conscious decision to risk their lives in order to continue the advancement of science that Hubble has begun. Space shuttle Endeavour has been put on standby mode in the unlikely event that a rescue mission is necessary during the Atlantis Mission.

Learn more on the mission in an interactive way, click on Last Mission to Hubble.   

Large Hadron Collider

  

Aerial view of LHC (Credit CERN)

Large Hadron Collider, the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator , also creates one of the coolest place in the universe, just  1.9 K (-271C; -456F)  to make superconducting magnets work. Situated beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, the accelerator is 27 kms in circumference and 100 m underground. The experiment, to be conducted over 20 years,   will revolutionise our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.  The proton beams were circulated  on 10^th September, 2008 for the first time, but were halted on 19^th September 2008 due to  a serious fault between two superconducting bending magnets.  As per a CERN press release, the LHC is expected to be restarted at the end of September 2009.  

To know why LHC, click here.