Hubble 3D: Deep Space Page #4

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When it's locked on a target...

...it will be like holding a laser beam

steady on a dime...

- ...that's 200 miles away.

- Is the mirror clean?

Oh, yeah, the mirror's clean.

It's very clean. Wow.

What?

This is an amazing view of Hawaii.

It has been said that in

the process of going to the moon...

...we discovered Earth.

Seeing it from here,

you experience a new appreciation...

...for the perfect utopia we inhabit.

Fantastic!

In all our searching,

we have yet to find another planet...

...that could nourish and protect us

as it does.

In our future journeys

away from our sheltering Earth...

...we'll need all the amazing skills

and teamwork of this crew.

The same courage and inventiveness

that has restored Hubble...

...to its full capacity and beyond.

Now it's time for our favorite segment:

Scooter's Corner.

- He's actually in his real corner.

- This is my seat--

- Wait, I've got gum.

- What are you gonna do with that?

I put it under the dash.

Maybe the next guy can enjoy it.

- There you have it.

- You know, I was afraid I'd say:

"Bye, Hubble. Waah."

But no, you know, we did it.

- Oh, one more thing.

- Yes.

Steve Lindsey,

I was just kidding about the gum.

Don't eat it, you might get sick.

Never know who's been there.

On day nine, above the Sahara,

the crew returns the telescope to orbit.

They'll return safely home

to their families...

...knowing they've exceeded

every expectation.

When we look back 500 years from now...

...I believe that Hubble will be judged...

...one of the truly remarkable

inventions of humankind.

Hubble addresses

such fundamental questions:

How did planets form?

Where did we come from?

Where did the universe come from?

How did the pieces...

...the chemical elements

that we're made of, form?

All these things that allowed us

to be here, to build a Hubble...

...to look out into the cosmos.

And already, what wonders we now see.

The new Wide Field Camera

captures a huge pillar of newborn stars...

...in the Carina Nebula.

The infant stars here are hidden...

...but Hubble's new infrared eye can peer

through the veil of gas and dust...

...revealing for the first time

a magical treasure trove of young stars.

An exquisite butterfly signals

the spectacular death of a star.

Its wings are boiling caldrons of gas...

...spewing out at 600,000 miles an hour...

...from the dying star at its heart.

Millions of stars at a glance...

...in Omega Centauri.

Our eyes see only the middle-aged

white stars, like our sun.

But in a single combined infrared

and ultraviolet view...

...the new Wide Field shows us

the extreme temperatures of stars.

We know that older stars become cooler,

ballooning into red giants.

Intensely hot stars...

...some burning the last of their fuel

before they die, shine bright blue.

All the stars we see in our night sky...

...are but a tiny handful of a few

hundred billion stars in our galaxy.

This giant disk of stars, gas and dust...

...is our home in the universe.

We call it the Milky Way.

Our nearest neighbor is some

two and a half million light-years away.

It's another spiral galaxy

named Andromeda.

We're the largest members

of our local group...

...of about three dozen galaxies.

Yet our small group is like a village,

far from the bright lights of the big city.

In the distance is a metropolis

called the Virgo Cluster.

It glows with the light

of over 2000 galaxies...

...of every shape and size.

In the center of the Virgo Cluster...

...is a giant elliptical galaxy

called Messier 87...

...perhaps 10 times the size

of our Milky Way.

At its heart

is a super-massive black hole...

...spewing a jet of high-energy radiation...

...huge distances across the galaxy.

Virgo's collection of 2000...

...is but a small drop

in an ocean of galaxies.

Hubble is now peering deeply

into a tiny region of the sky...

...looking back across time towards

the very edge of the observable universe.

The further back we travel in time...

...the more misshapen

and less developed the galaxies appear.

The objects we're now seeing...

...are 10 billion light-years away.

Their light began to cross the universe

towards us...

...billions of years

before the Earth existed.

From this small sliver of a view...

...astronomers estimate...

...there may be a hundred billion galaxies

across the universe.

Immense strings of galaxies

crisscross the cosmos...

...collecting into vast clusters

and super-clusters...

...where the strings intersect.

On the largest scale, the structure

resembles a cosmic web of galaxies...

...spanning the universe.

Billions of galaxies,

each with billions of stars.

Doesn't it make you wonder?

Will we ever find anywhere as perfect

as our own planet Earth?

Hubble has given us a renewed perspective

on the place we call home.

We now know how important it is

to protect this fragile oasis...

...deep within the boundless reaches

of Hubble's magnificent universe.

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