EADS Atrium has completed assembly of the mirror for the European Space Agency's Herschel space telescope. This milestone moves Herschel a step closer to its late 2007 launch date.

What I don't get, is why are we getting so upset about Hubble being allowed to go out of service? Recent adpative optics packages for the Keck II telescope have made it as good as a space based telescope. You remember the rotational images Hubble got of Ceres a month or two ago? About a year ago Keck II used adaptive optics to do the very same thing - and it achieved better detail. I have the pictures.

Compare...

Rotational images of asteroid 1 Ceres as achieved by Christophe Dumas and his team using Keck II with AO. A year or so ago.
http://s1.simpload.com/10034341d7edcf588.jpg

Very recent rotational images using Hubble.
http://s1.simpload.com/10034341d866aab89.jpg

Note that in the Keck II images, you can clearly see large craters, large dark spots, etc, traversing the planetoid. The only thing you can see in the Hubble images is a big white spot. Conclusion: The year old Keck images are way better than the recent Hubble images.

So, I think that Hubble is great, just like all of us. I think it is an incredible piece of technology. But, its time has come and gone. We can now get equal, if not far better, performance out of ground based systems. And what with Herschel going up in 2007, I really dont see the need for Hubble. Especially because of the price tag of keeping it running.

Does anyone have any interesting information on Herschel? I've heard the latest technology was used to create the mirror, and it is half again as big as Hubbles. Just exactly how much more powerful will it be over Hubble? How long will it be able to function?

---Vil.