The new era of deep space imagery and discovery has truly begun with the James Webb Space Telescope now delivering new discoveries and insights. However, even though Hubble has handed over the baton, it is still fully functioning and will do science as long as it’s able. Furthermore, the two telescopes can now work in tandem. The Hubble space telescope has spotted new pair of galaxies that are amidst a dance of merging after colliding.
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The gravitational tug-of-war is occurring about 670 million lightyears away, with the two galaxy cores relatively close to each other while the rest of the stars form a plume around them. NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) has dubbed the pair Arp-Madore 417-391.
Hubble used its long-serving Advanced Camera for Surveys to spot the merging galaxies. Scientists are now using the orbital hardware to build a list of follow-up observations for the much newer James Webb telescope, which will add a lot more detail and understanding of this ongoing process.
While the James Webb Space Telescope has already observed several areas of the cosmos that Hubble did to build a comparative view, they haven’t yet truly teamed up to look at the same thing at the same time.
Unfortunately, there may not be a lot of time left for the two major astronomical accomplishments to work together. Hubble has suffered several system failures in recent year, but was still able to remain operational. Unlike when the telescope was originally launched, there is no more funds to repair any malfunctioning hardware. Hubble is expected to plummet to Earth as soon as 2030 if there is nothing else that can be done to fix these problems.
There are talks between NASA and SpaceX to boost the telescope’s orbit further away from Earth, which could give it an extended lifespan, but nothing is guaranteed yet. So enjoy this wonderful discovery from Hubble, it may be one of the last notable ones before it is fully decommissioned.
