THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE continues to return pictures to Earth including this stunning image of doomed star Eta Carinae. The star is 8,000 light years away and was the site of an explosion, which was seen on Earth 150 years ago. Eta Carinae, one of the most massive stars in our galaxy and 100 times larger than the Sun, survived, leaving two polar lobes and a large equatorial disc. Meanwhile, NASA says that the Space Shuttle STS82/Discovery mission to service the Hubble telescope is on schedule for a 13 February, 1997 launch, despite delays to other missions. The next STS81/Atlantis mission to link with Russia's Mir 1 space station has been delayed to 12 September, by booster problems. The telescope service will involve three spacewalks and the fitment of a space-telescope imaging spectrograph and near-infra-red camera multi-object spectrograph.
Source: Flight International