Light & Laser Blog

It is being replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2014.

The JWST is mostly for infrared, not good old visible light like the Hubble.

True, true...

From what I read about the current astronomy research though, very few of the astronomers are recording data in the visible spectrum.

Most of the newer images I see are labeled 'color-enhanced'.

And will it remain a piece of orbiting space junk or will it re-enter, spraying molten bits all over Sudan?

That's a good point, PW. Though the satellite will be technologically obsolete it will still be a familiar and highly regarded piece of history for many. It's too bad that bringing it down would be rediculously impractical; otherwise it would make an excellent museum exibit.

The good news is that NASA took steps on the STS-125 repair mission to keep Hubble from becoming a huge piece of space junk. An article on Space.com explains that during the mission astronaughts installed a docking port for future robotic boosters to latch on to, which gives a couple of opitons including manuevering Hubble for a controlled re-entry ("space cremation") or possibly pushing it outward into "museum orbit."

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/090505-sts125-hubble-repair-faq.html