Hubble Gets Rebuild; Shuttle Gets Ticket Home
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Space shuttle Columbia’s astronauts planned a landing before daybreak today, leaving behind a more powerful Hubble Space Telescope able to peer across the universe almost to the beginning of time.
The telescope was given $172 million worth of new gear: more powerful solar wings, a better central power unit, the most advanced optical camera ever launched to study the universe and a refrigeration system that NASA hopes will revive a disabled infrared camera.
With the enhanced Hubble, astronomers hope to look as far back as the universe’s first billion years.
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