The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) is the Hubble Space Telescope's last and most technologically advanced instrument to take images in the visible spectrum. It was installed as a replacement for the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 during the first spacewalk of Space Shuttle mission STS-125 (Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4) on May 14, 2009.
As of April 2023, WFC3 was still operating.
The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) is a camera formerly installed on the Hubble Space Telescope. The camera was built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is roughly the size of a baby grand piano. It was installed by servicing mission 1 (STS-61) in 1993, replacing the telescope's original Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WF/PC). WFPC2 was used to image the Hubble Deep Field in 1995, the Engraved Hourglass Nebula and Egg Nebula in 1996, and the Hubble Deep Field South in 1998. During STS-125, WFPC2 was removed and replaced with the Wide Field Camera 3 as part of the mission's first spacewalk on May 14, 2009. After returning to Earth, the camera was displayed briefly at the National Air and Space Museum and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory before returning to its final home at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
BoRG-58 is a galaxy cluster located in the Boötes constellation. It was discovered during a randomized infrared sky scan as part of the Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies (BoRG) program, using the Wide Field Camera 3 of the Hubble Space Telescope. BoRG-58 is located at a distance of 13.1 billion light-years (light-travel time).
In the cluster, more properly defined as a protocluster of galaxies, five young galaxies have been identified whose images date back to an era corresponding to when the Universe was only 600 million years old from the Big Bang. This phase coincides with the epoch of reionization, the period during which the hydrogen of the gas present in the Universe passed from an almost completely neutral state to being almost completely ionized. These five galaxies were small in size, about 1/20 of the Milky Way, but nevertheless had a luminosity comparable to it.
S/2015 (136472) 1, unofficially nicknamed MK2 by the discovery team, is the only known moon of the trans-Neptunian dwarf planet Makemake. It is a dark object about 175 km (110 mi) in diameter, orbiting 22,250 km (13,800 mi) away from Makemake with an orbital period of 18 days. Observations leading to its discovery occurred in April 2015, using the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3, and its discovery was announced on 26 April 2016.
STS-125, or HST-SM4 (Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4), was the fifth and final Space Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis occurred on May 11, 2009, at 2:01 pm EDT. Landing occurred on May 24 at 11:39 am EDT, with the mission lasting a total of just under 13 days.
Space Shuttle Atlantis carried two new instruments to the Hubble Space Telescope, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Wide Field Camera 3. The mission also replaced a Fine Guidance Sensor, six gyroscopes, and two battery unit modules to allow the telescope to continue to function at least through 2014. The crew also installed new thermal blanket insulating panels to provide improved thermal protection, and a soft-capture mechanism that would aid in the safe de-orbiting of the telescope by a robotic spacecraft at the end of its operational lifespan. The mission also carried an IMAX camera with which the crew documented the progress of the mission for the 2010 IMAX film Hubble.
Stellar mass loss is a phenomenon observed in stars by which stars lose some mass over their lives. Mass loss can be caused by triggering events that cause the sudden ejection of a large portion of the star's mass. It can also occur when a star gradually loses material to a binary companion or due to strong stellar winds. Massive stars are particularly susceptible to losing mass in the later stages of evolution. The amount and rate of mass loss varies widely based on numerous factors.
Stellar mass loss plays a very important role in stellar evolution, the composition of the interstellar medium, nucleosynthesis as well as understanding the populations of stars in clusters and galaxies.