MV Astronomy Club

A Stellar Anniversary by carol higgins

Hubble Servicing Mission, 1999 Image credit: NASA

The night sky has been the source of wonderment and curiosity for thousands of years. Ancient scholars did their best to learn about the universe, but it wasn’t until 1609 when Galileo built the first telescope that significant discoveries began to emerge. Today’s telescopes range from those with high-quality optics and sophisticated science instruments for professional researchers to affordable options for amateur astronomers. But of all of the telescopes ever built, there is one that has gained worldwide attention and captured the imagination of millions of people. It is NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope!

This year, we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the start of its mission, and what a mission it has been! Hubble launched into space on April 24, 1990, in the cargo bay of Space Shuttle Discovery. The next day, astronauts deployed the telescope into its orbit about 340 miles above Earth’s equator. Why put a telescope in space? Because our planet’s atmosphere distorts light and causes blurry images, and also blocks some wavelengths such as infrared and x-ray.

Named in honor of renowned American astronomer Edwin Hubble, the telescope is the size of a school bus at almost 44 feet long and 14 feet wide. It has a massive 94.5-inch diameter primary mirror and 12- inch secondary mirror. Instruments include two cameras, guidance sensors to help the telescope stay pointed while observing, and spectrographs to analyze the elements in distant objects.

The mission got off to a rough start.

Once in orbit, the ground team began checking systems and making sure the telescope was ready to take its first test image. The big day arrived on May 20, 1990; a star cluster named NGC 3532 was the target. When the image was downloaded it was not good news. The image quality was not sharp – the telescope was slightly out of focus!

Hanny’s Voorwerp. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, W. Keel, Galaxy Zoo Team As science research got underway, an investigation into the imaging problem also began immediately. Weeks later, engineers determined a mistake made during grinding of the primary mirror had led to a problem with its surface. Eventually, a solution was universe. For example, Hubble discovered proposed: design and build two instrument our universe is expanding and accelerating, packages, then send astronauts on a daring leading to theories about the influence of servicing mission. “dark energy”. Observations of planets and

Hubble was designed for future upmoons showed us auroras on Saturn and Jugrades, and on December 2, 1993, the first piter, evidence of water inside of Jupiter’s repair mission launched. Space Shuttle Enmoon Ganymede, and we witnessed in redeavour carried the new instruments and a al-time the impacts of comet fragments as team of highly trained astronauts. When the they hit Jupiter. We’ve studied star-formspacecraft reached Hubble, the crew used ing regions, dying stars, detailed views of a robotic arm to “grab” the telescope and galaxies, and found that black holes are in move it to the cargo bay where astronauts almost every galaxy. So far, astronomers began a series of spacewalks to perform have published over 17,000 scientific parepairs. The result? All imaging problems pers thanks to Hubble data. were fixed. The Hubble Space Telescope is still

Since then, there have been four addihealthy and continues to return invaluable tional servicing missions. Each one was an science data and images. To learn more opportunity for astronauts to perform mainabout this unique space observatory, view tenance and repairs, and install advanced its images and videos, and read about its new instruments to expand the capabilities significant discoveries, visit the www.nasa. of the science and research platform. gov/mission_pages/hubble/about website.

These upgrades have led to stunning Wishing you clear skies and good images and startling discoveries about our health! •

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