NASA's Space Telescope Live provides an interactive way to explore the most accurate, up-to-date publicly available information about current, past and upcoming observations from NASA's Hubble and Webb space telescopes.
Designed and developed by NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, NASA's SpaceTelescopeLive provides inside access to the details of current and upcoming observations: not just what each telescope is observing, but where the targets are in the sky, how the data is being collected, and the questions researchers hope to answer.
Identify, locate and zoom in on a map showing the latest targets. Go back to the next target, then back to the previous target. Monitoring schedule. View scientific instruments. View yesterday's observations, research plan, and the full catalog of past observations by Hubble and Webb.
It's not hard to know what NASA's Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes have observed in the past. Images, spectra and other data captured by NASA's prolific astronomical observatories lead to news of cosmic discoveries almost every week.
But what are Hubble and Webb looking at right now? Hazy star pillars that harbor newborn stars? A pair of colliding galaxies? The atmosphere of a distant planet? The Milky Way's light stretched and distorted during its 13-billion-year journey through space?
NASA's Space Telescope Live, a web application originally developed in 2016 to provide real-time updates on Hubble targets, now provides convenient access to the latest information on current, past and upcoming observations from Hubble and Webb.
Designed and developed for NASA by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, this exploratory tool provides the public with an intuitive and engaging way to learn more about how astronomical surveys are conducted.
With a redesigned user interface and expanded functionality, users can learn not only which planets, stars, nebulae, galaxies, or regions of deep space each telescope is currently observing, but also where exactly those objects are in the sky; which scientific instruments are being used to capture images, spectra, and other data; the exact time and duration of the observations; the status of the observations; who is leading the research; and, most importantly, what the scientists are trying to discover.
Observation information from approved science programs is available through the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes. NASA's Space Telescope Live system provides easy access to this information - not just the day's targets, but the entire catalog of past observations - with Webb records dating back to the first commissioned target in January 2022, and Hubble records going back to the start of operations in May 1990.
A zoomable sky map centered on the target location was created using the Aladin Sky Atlas, with images from ground-based telescopes providing context for the observations. (Because data from Hubble and Webb must undergo preliminary processing and, in many cases, preliminary analysis before being released to the public and the astronomical community, live images from these two telescopes are not included in this tool).
Details such as target names and coordinates, planned start and end times, and research topics come directly from the observation scheduling and proposal planning database. Links within the tool lead users to the original research proposal as a gateway to more technical information.
The latest version of NASA's Space Telescope Live represents a significant shift from the previous version, but the team is already gathering user feedback and plans to roll out additional enhancements that will provide deeper opportunities for exploration and understanding.
NASA's Space Telescope Live runs on desktop and mobile devices and is accessible through NASA's official Hubble and Webb websites.
Compiled from:ScitechDaily