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Yes but isn't Hubble moving? Or is it in a fixed position in space?
by atonse 6y ago
Yes but isn't Hubble moving? Or is it in a fixed position in space?
- ben_w 6y agoThere’s no such thing as a fixed position in space. The motion of Hubble (and basically everything inside the Milky Way) relative to the galaxies in that picture is ~250,000 km/s, or 0.83 c. At this speed, it would take ~100,000 years for the galaxy to move its own length, and even then the movement would be in a direction which doesn’t cause much blur. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=12e9%20light%20years%20%2A%2067.7%20km%2Fs%2FMpc http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=12e9%20light%20years%20...
- atonse 6y agoTo be clear I meant is it in a fixed position relative to earth? I know if you’re photographing galaxies, they move so little relative to us that they might as well be stationary. But isn’t Hubble in an orbit?
- ben_w 6y agoMotion on the scale of “orbit” is utterly irrelevant on these scales. Rotation around an internal axis is the only thing which matters, and that’s something space telescopes are designed around.