On April 24, 1990 the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was launched from  the Space Shuttle Discovery. Previously, telescopes had been positioned on remote mountaintops and away from city lights in order to prevent distortion from Earth’s atmosphere. Now Hubble was being propelled into Earth’s orbit to prevent atmospheric distortion literally by rising above it.

That atmosphere is what causes start to look as if they are twinkling (sorry romantics, they don’t really twinkle….)¹ But, once outside Earth’s atmosphere, “… [Hubble] can see astronomical objects with an angular size of 0.05 arc seconds, which is like seeing a pair of fireflies in Tokyo from your home in Maryland.” ²

As telescopes go, Hubble is not large, the mirror measures 7’10” across (2.4 meters), the length of a large school bus³ (the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere is 30 feet).⁴ Hubble weighs 24,500 pounds – as much as 2 full-grown elephants^{5 –}  and  was named after Edwin Hubble, the man who is credited with discovering the cosmos.

Within a couple of weeks after it was launched, it became obvious that Hubble’s mirror had a flaw.  The curvature was off by off by 1/50 of a human hair – 2.2 microns – enough to cause fuzzy images to be sent back to earth. Hubble was circling Earth at 17, 500 miles per hour and 343 miles above it, and scientists needed to figure out a way to correct Hubble’s flawed mirror. In 1993 the first servicing mission was launched and Hubble’s flaw was successfully corrected. The mission was the first chance to fix the flaw, install new instruments and conduct routine maintenance.⁶

Hubble was designed to work with the Space Shuttles, the plan being that once it was no longer serviceable, it would be brought back to Earth and displayed in a museum. The retirement of the space shuttles means, however, that Hubble will not be able to be brought back to Earth. Now, a robotic mission is expected to help guide Hubble out of orbit, through Earth’s atmosphere and into the ocean.⁷

The Hubble Telescope doesn’t travel to distance stars, planets or galaxies, it photographs them and in January of 1996 the “Hubble Deep Field” was released. At that time it was humanity’s most distant view of the Universe. For ten days scientists aimed Hubble at a single spot in Ursa Major (the Big Dipper), taking several hundred photos with exposure times of 15 to 40 minutes.  “The result was a stunning still life of more than two thousand galaxies, a flurry of budding, tumultuous light whipped up in the shadowy primordial vacuum.” (Kanipe. pg 6)⁸

The brightest galaxies visible in the Deep Field are between 7 and 8 billion light-years away, some from 12 billion years ago. Some of the Milky Way’s oldest stars which congregate in globular clusters, are about 13 billion years old. ⁹ In fact, “Hubble has peered back into the very distant past, to locations more than 13.4 billion light years from Earth.”¹⁰

The photo of  “Mystic Mountain Nebula” was released for Hubble’s 20^th Anniversary. Mystic Mountain is a pillar of gas and dust, three light-years tall. The brilliant light from nearby stars is eating away at it, while infant stars within the Mystic Mountain fire jets of gas.¹¹

The Sombrero Galaxy is just beyond the visibility of the naked eye, but can be seen with small telescopes. There are nearly 2,000 globular clusters which range in age from 10-13 billion years old. This is 10 times as many globular clusters as the Milky Way.¹²

Pandora’s Cluster appears to have a complex and violent history. It seems to be the “… result of a simultaneous pile-up of at least four separate, smaller galaxy clusters. The crash took place over a span of 350 million years.”¹³

To celebrate Hubble’s 21st anniversary, scientists pointed it a group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273.  The larger of the spiral galaxies is distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational tidal pull of the companion galaxy. The blue jewels across the top are combined light from intensely bright and hot young blue stars. They glow intensely in the ultraviolet light.  The series of unusual spiral patterns are signs of interaction.¹⁴

In the 25 years since Hubble was launched it has made more than 1 million observations. Astronomers using that data have published more than 12,700 articles, making it one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built.  It has circled Earth and traveled more than 3 billion miles and produces about 10 terabytes of new data each year.¹⁵ The policies governing Hubble have helped make it so rich in data and productivity. Any astronomer in the world can submit a proposal and request time on the telescope. When a proposal is chosen by a team of experts, that astronomer has a year to pursue their work. Once the year is up  the data is released to the scientific community, which has given rise to numerous findings – many not predicted in the original proposal.¹⁶

Happy 25th Anniversary!!

RESOURCES:

1. Zimmerman, Robert. 2008. The universe in a mirror: the saga of the Hubble Telescope and the visionaries who built it. Princeton,

   

   N.J. : Princeton University Press. Engineering Library QB5.268 .Z56 2008

2. Hubble Space Telescope. Feb. 20, 2015. NASA.
3. Ibid.
4. Southern Africa Large Telescope (SALT). Dec. 29, 2011. Space.com
5. Hubble Space Telescope. Feb. 20, 2015. NASA.
6. The Hubble Space Telescope. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center. This website is kept for archival purposes only and is no longer updated. Accessed: April 2015.
7. The Telescope Hubble Essentials. HubbleSite. Date Accessed: April 2015.
8. Kanipe, Jeff. Chasing Hubble’s shadows: the search for galaxies at the edge of time. 2006. New York : Hill and Wang. Engineering Library QB500.262 .K36 2006.
9. Ibid.
10. Hubble Space Telescope. Feb. 20, 2015. NASA.
11. Newscenter. April 22, 2010. HubbleSite.
12. Gallery. HubbleSite. Date Accessed, April 2015.
13. Newscenter. June 22, 2011. HubbleSite.
14. Newscenter. “Rose” of Galaxies. April 20, 2011. HubbleSite.
15. Hubble Space Telescope. Feb. 20, 2015. NASA
16. The Telescope Hubble Essentials. HubbleSite. Date Accessed: April 2015.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

1. Chaline, Eric. 2012. Fifty machines that changed the course of history. Buffalo, N.Y. : Firefly Books. Engineering Library TJ15 .C44 2012
2. Weintraub, David A. 2011. How old is the universe? Princeton, J.J. : Princeton University Press. Engineering Library QB501 .W45 2011
3. O’Dell, C. Robert. 2003. The Orion Nebula : where stars are born. Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap press of Harvard University Press. Engineering Library QB855.9.O75 O34 2003
4. Zimmerman, Robert. 2008. The universe in a mirror : the saga of the Hubble Telescope and the visionaries who built it. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press. Engineering Library QB500.268 .Z56 2008.
5. ‘You and the rest’: twenty years since NASA’s dramatic Hubble repair mission (part 1). AmericaSpace. Date Accessed: April 2015
6. Expect the unexpected in a Hubble 25th anniversary video. April 10, 2015. NASA.
7. The Hubble Space Telescope turns 25 – here are its best 25 images. April 20, 2015. Extreme Tech.
8. Highlights of Hubble. April 15, 2015. Nature: International weekly journal of science.
9. Biography of a space telescope: Voices of Hubble. April 15, 2015. Nature: International weekly journal of science.

When you think of submarines, you might think of sub sandwiches, or start singing “…We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine….”¹

But, as we recognize April 11^th as National Submarine Day, it is good to remember that living on a US Naval Submarine is a hazardous place to be. On April 11, 1900 the first commissioned submarine, the USS Holland, was acquired by the United States Navy. The Holland was not the first Navy sub, however. That honor goes to the Alligator which was the first submarine ordered and built by the Navy, although it was never commissioned.

In 1863, the Alligator was being towed by the Sumpter, with the plan for the two ships to join the Union attack on Charleston, South Carolina. They were caught in a Nor’easter and the captain of the Sumpter made the decision to cut the ties to the Alligator. The submarine was lost in the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” and was forgotten for nearly 140 years. ²

No lives were lost when the Alligator sank, but there have been many submarine disasters since then. As submarines become larger and more sophisticated, more and more crew are needed, and the loss of life becomes more dramatic.

“Potent, lethal, secret. The ultimate war machine. Nothing else on earth is so densely packed with men and firepower. Submarines truly fought the Cold War. Yet for all their might they are no match for the power of the sea. The submariner’s deadliest enemy is not the other side, it is the ocean itself.” ³

The Civil War submarine HL Hunley was the first submarine to sink a ship in combat. It is known as the “murdering ship,” not because of the lives she took, but because her own crew died when she sank. So many lives were lost that World War I submarines became known as the “coffin service.“ ³

There are many causes of submarine disasters and loss of life, including water rushing in through cracks in the submarine’s hull, torpedoes exploding, valves not sealing, electrical problems, and a loss of power. The intense pressure of the deep seas can crush a submarine, causing a “humane,” instantaneous death. Most of the submarine deaths are much less humane and include suffocation and drowning.  After nuclear powered subs were introduced, radiation poisoning also became a threat. ³

Safety was a concern about submarines from the very beginning. The earliest patents were often for safety equipment on submarines. In 1907 a patent was granted for “Means of Escape from Sunken Submarines.”⁴ But ways to more reliably rescue crews from downed subs weren’t developed until 1927 when the “Momsen Lung” was developed. The Momsen Lung recycled exhaled air and was hung around the sailors’ neck. It provided oxygen for the ascent and allowed the submariner to slowly rise to the surface, thus avoiding the bends.⁵

In 1962, the U.S. Navy introduced the Steinke Hood, an inflatable life jacket with a hood that trapped a bubble of breathing air and completely enclosed the submariner’s head. The Steinke Hood was standard equipment on all Navy submarines throughout the Cold War. The Navy then began replacing the Steinke Hood with the Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment (SEIE). This was a combination whole-body suit and one-man life raft. It provided protection against hypothermia in the freezing water – which is something that neither the Momsen Lung nor Steinke Hood was equipped to do. ⁶

Currently the Navy is working not only to improve survival rates on submarines but  also means of escape and rescue. One improvement are the  Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicles (DSRV) which are capable of rescues down to 2000 feet. Another one of the future rescue systems will include the ability to transfer personnel under pressure. This would allow crew members to be rescued at deep depths under immense pressure and then be transferred to a decompression chamber. ⁷ 

For more information on this fascinating subject, check out the resources listed below, and the others we have here in the library.

REFERENCES:

1. George Martin, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison. Copyright: Sony/ATV Tunes LLC, Sony/ATV Music Publishing (UK) Limited, Northern Songs
2. Undersea Warfare. Spring 2006. The Official Magazine of the U.S. Submarine Force. vol. 8, no. 3.
3. Lost Subs: disaster at sea. 2002. National Geographic Television & Film : Burbank CA. Engineering Library video record 39620 DVD
4. Means of escape from sunken submarines. 1907 patent.
5. Swede Momsen: Diving & Rescue – Momsen Lung. Science & Technology Focus, Office of Naval Research. Date accessed: March 2015.
6. Steinke Hood. 2000-2015. Global Security.org. Date accessed: March 2015.
7. Submarine rescue: ready for the unthinkable. Fall 2000. Undersea Warfare: the Official Magazine of the U.S. Submarine Force, vol. 3, no. 1

OTHER RESOURCES:

1. The nuclear pioneers: atomic subs and nuclear missiles. 2007. Periscop Film. Engineering Circulation Desk Video Record 39515 DVD
2. Coen, Ross Allen. 2012. Breaking ice for Arctic oil : the epic voyage of the SS Manhattan through the Northwest Passage. Fairbanks : University of Alaska Press. Engineering Library HE595 .P4 C64 2012.
3. Fossen, Thor I. 2011. Handbook of marine craft hydrodynamics and motion control. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K. ; Hoboken N.J. : Wiley. Engineering Library VM156 .F67 2011
4. The story of the Alligator. The Hunt for the Alligator, The Navy & Marine Living History Association (NMLHA), in cooperation with the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association (NOAA) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR). Date accessed: March 2015.
5. Delgado, James P. 2011. Silent killers: submarines and underwater warfare. Oxford : New York : Osprey. Engineering Library V210 .D45 2011.
6. Submarine Frequently Asked Questions. Chief of Naval Operations, Submarine Warfare Division. Date accessed, March 2015. (some of the answers are dated – #10, women are, as of 2010, now allowed to be Naval submariners. See Navy Policy Will Allow Women to Serve Aboard Submarines. America’s Navy. 4/29/2010