Making the Most of a Short Life

摘要

The front-page pictures last month of the "pistol star"—perhaps the brightest star ever seen in our galaxy—was one of a string of striking images this year from the Hubble Space Telescope. But it was among the first from the Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), one of two new instruments astronauts installed on the telescope in February. For NICMOS scientists, the splash of publicity was a welcome respite from the headaches that the instrument has caused.