Hubble Space Telescope
hideThe Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by the space shuttle in April 1990. It is named after the American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Although not the first space telescope, the Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well-known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The HST is a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, and is one of NASA's Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Space telescopes were proposed as early as 1923. The Hubble was funded in the 1970s, with a proposed launch in 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the Challenger disaster. When finally launched in 1990, scientists found that the main mirror had been ground incorrectly, severely compromising the telescope's capabilities. However, after a servicing mission in 1993, the telescope was restored to its intended quality. Hubble's orbit outside the distortion of Earth's atmosphere allows it to take extremely sharp images with almost no background light. Hubble's Ultra Deep Field image, for instance, is the most detailed visible-light image ever made of the universe's most distant objects. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as accurately determining the rate of expansion of the universe.
The Hubble is the only telescope ever designed to be serviced in space by astronauts. There have been five servicing missions, the last occurring in May 2009. Servicing Mission 1 took place in December 1993 when Hubble's imaging flaw was corrected. Servicing missions 2, 3A, and 3B repaired various sub-systems and replaced many of the observing instruments with more modern and capable versions. However, following the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia accident, the fifth servicing mission was canceled on safety grounds. After spirited public discussion, NASA reconsidered this decision, and administrator Mike Griffin approved one final Hubble servicing mission. STS-125 was launched in May 2009, and installed two new instruments and made numerous repairs. Assuming testing and calibration of the new equipment goes well, the Hubble should resume routine operation in September 2009.
The latest servicing should allow the telescope to function until at least 2014, when its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is due to be launched. The JWST will be far superior to Hubble for many astronomical research programs, but will only observe in infrared, so it will complement (not replace) Hubble's ability to observe in the visible and ultraviolet parts of the spectrum.
For more information about Hubble Space Telescope, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
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News tagged with hubble space telescope
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers at The University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics have discovered one of the hottest stars in the Galaxy with a surface temperature of around 200,000 degrees ...
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Just as many people are surprised to find themselves packing on unexplained weight around the middle, astronomers find the evolution of bulges in the centres of spiral galaxies puzzling. A ...
Study of first high-resolution images of Pallas confirms asteroid is actually a protoplanet
Oct 12, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Britney E. Schmidt, a UCLA doctoral student in the department of Earth and space sciences, wasn't sure what she'd glean from images of the asteroid Pallas taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. ...
Black Holes Go 'Mano a Mano'
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Two black holes in galaxy NGC 6240 are only 3,000 light years apart -- and getting closer.
NASA's LCROSS Reveals Target Crater For Lunar South Pole Impacts
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Sep 11, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA has selected a final destination for its Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, after a journey of nearly 5.6 million miles that included several orbits around Earth ...
Rebirth of an icon: Hubble's first images since Servicing Mission 4
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Sep 09, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers today declared the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope a fully rejuvenated observatory ready for a new decade of exploration, with the release of observations from four of its six ...
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The dust-filled disks where new planets may be forming around other stars occasionally take on some difficult-to-understand shapes. Now, a team led by John Debes at NASA's Goddard Space Flight ...
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Smouldering several thousand light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer), the Trifid Nebula presents a compelling portrait of the early stages of a star's life, from gestation to first ...
Astronomers Find Hyperactive Galaxies in the Early Universe
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Looking almost 11 billion years into the past, astronomers have measured the motions of stars for the first time in a very distant galaxy and clocked speeds upwards of one million miles per ...
Refurbished Hubble Ready to Resume Exploration
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May 19, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The Hubble Space Telescope has been with us for nearly two decades. In that time, its breathtaking images have captured people’s imaginations and its groundbreaking science has revealed some ...
Stuck bolt, dead battery bedevil Hubble repairs
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
May 17, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Spacewalkers' specially designed tools couldn't dislodge a balky bolt interfering with repairs Sunday at the Hubble Space Telescope, so they took an approach more familiar to people puttering around ...
Let there be light: Camera hooked up for Hubble
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
May 14, 2009 |
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(AP) -- A pair of spacewalking astronauts overpowered a stubborn bolt and successfully installed a new piano-sized camera in the Hubble Space Telescope on Thursday, the first step to making the observatory ...
Astronauts grab Hubble, prepare for tough repairs
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
May 13, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Atlantis' astronauts grabbed the Hubble Space Telescope on Wednesday, then quickly set their sights on the difficult, dangerous and unprecedented spacewalking repairs they will attempt over the next ...
Refined Hubble Constant narrows explanations for dark energy
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Whatever dark energy is, explanations for it have less wiggle room following a Hubble Space Telescope observation that has refined the measurement of the universe's present expansion rate to a precision where ...
Astronomers find most crowded collision of galaxy clusters
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The most crowded collision of galaxy clusters has been identified by combining information from three different telescopes. This result gives scientists a chance to learn what happens when some of the largest ...
