Nasa’s Hubble Telescope – The First Space Telescope Put In Atmosphere
Have you ever wondered how NASA gets those brilliant and amazingly clear photos of space and what wondrous things inhabit it? Well, it all started in 1990; actually technically it started in 1965 when the construction of something that was something that was its own thing and the first of its kind. In total through 25 years of engineering and effort 1. 3 billion USD was spent on the process of building the massive wonder along with future unexpected costs, and was prepared to be launched in 1990. This wonder is called the Hubble Space Telescope, the first space telescope to be put in our atmosphere.
The Hubble scope being the first of its kind had a pointing accuracy of 0. 007 arc seconds (that’s the equivalent of being able to shine a laser beam on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s head on a dime about 200 miles away), and can see astronomical objects with an angular size of 0. 05 arc seconds (that’s like seeing a pair of dragonflies in Tokyo from your home in Maryland), and is also the length of a school bus (13 meters).
The bus-sized telescope was named in honor of the astronomer Edwin Hubble, who was a famous American astronomer who helped establish the fields of extragalactic astronomy, and is considered one of the most important astronomers of all time. Along with being the length of a school bus, the scope also weighs a whopping 24,000 lbs. but, up until the last servicing mission in 2009, the scope now weighs 27,000 lbs. since two elephants were put on it.
Since its launch in 1990, Hubble has made over 1. 3 billion observations which have helped contribute to over 15,000 scientific papers being written. In those papers, they used data from the telescope, but what is interesting is that Hubble has over 140 Tb of data and produces around 10 Tb of data per year. In orbit since 1990, the telescope has orbited a total of over 4 billion miles around the Earth; it also has the ability to take its amazing pictures while flying around the Earth at 15,000 miles per hour. With its amazing potential for pictures, Hubble has observed the most distant stars and galaxies, along with planets in our own solar system. Hubble has also seen into our distant past, seeing over 13. 4 billion light years away.
In conclusion, the Hubble Space Telescope that was a dream for NASA in 1990 has become a reality and has proven helpful with all of its information that it has provided.
