NASA announced that it wants to get the public involved in determining the next target for its powerful Hubble Space Telescope. The competition is called "Hubble's Next Discovery — You Decide," and is one of the agency's many contributions to the International Year of Astronomy.

People are invited to log onto Hubble’s Web site and choose one of the six new astronomical objects displayed by the agency. None of them have ever been explored and the one with the most votes will soon be the focus of a new examination session.

The offered options include four distant galaxies, two planetary nebulas and a star-forming dust cloud.

The voting option will be available untill the 1st of March. From that point on, depending on the visitors’ preferences, the Hubble telescope will use its powerful camera to take high-resolution photos of the chosen object, revealing new details about its formation and compounds. 

The International Year of Astronomy's "100 Hours of Astronomy," which will take place between April 2 and 5, will include a display of the photo session and voters will get a chance to win one of the 100 copies of one of Hubble’s photographs.

Aside from this part of the project, NASA also invites teachers and students to join in on an accompanying Hubble Space Telescope classroom collage activity that brings together art, science and language arts. The students involved in this activity will pick out their favorite Hubble photos and will use them to form a collage. Students in each class will also choose their favorite object from the image voting contest and present the reasons for their selections in a written essay.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990 and has helped scientists better understand our surounding and also explore space significantly better than before. It was named in honor of Edwin Hubble, a pioner astronomer credited with a theory on the expansion of the universe.

Its next servicing mission is scheduled to take place on May 12, 2009, with the launch of space shuttle Atlantis. The mission’s objective is to extend and improve the observatory’s capabilities through 2013. "We have conducted a detailed analysis of the performance and procedures necessary to carry out a successful Hubble repair mission over the course of the last three shuttle missions. What we have learned has convinced us that we are able to conduct a safe and effective servicing mission to Hubble," explained NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, also adding that "While there is an inherent risk in all spaceflight activities, the desire to preserve a truly international asset like the Hubble Space Telescope makes doing this mission the right course of action."

The astronauts selected for the mission are veteran astronaut Commander Scott D. Altman, Navy Reserve Capt. Gregory C. Johnson as pilot, veteran spacewalkers John M. Grunsfeld and Michael J. Massimino will be the mission specialists and they will be assisted by first-time space fliers Andrew J. Feustel, Michael T. Good and K. Megan McArthur. At this point, two of the telescope’s three instruments are out of order.