Launched on April 24, 1990, The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has been the pride of astronomical science, called the shooting star of a new golden age of astronomy. “The history of Hubble has been a roller coaster,” said NASA associate administrator Ed Weiler, “or a trip to Mount Everest and on to Death Valley.”
We all remember as if it were yesterday. The mission-critical defect was obvious moments following the transmission of the first images. The 12.5-ton telescope was ashamedly nearsighted, and all the heavenly objects it looked upon were blurry. Hubble’s 7.5 foot polished mirror was incorrectly ground to an error of only one 25th the width of a human hair rendering useless the $2,000M eye-above-the-sky.
“The can do NASA folks went for broke,” said Pete Patari of the Goddard Spaceflight Center. It was three and a half years later that Shuttle astronauts installed repairs, the equivalent of prescription glasses correcting Hubble’s vision, a lasting success.
Hubble astronomer Andy Fruchter said, “It is actually exceeding the original expectations.” Astrophysicist Mario Livio, of the Space Telescope Science Institute said, “[It] has proven to be one of the most diverse scientific tools that ever existed.”
More than 298,000 breathtaking images have been recorded by Hubble, granting mankind glimpses of the heavens far beyond the reach of much larger Earth-based telescopes. With the HST, scientists are learning more about the age and size of the limitless universe. We now have proof that collapsed stars called black holes, are real. We see clearly the surface of Pluto, the birth of stars, comets, and the collision of meteors with a planet.
The celestial outer neighborhood is much more chaotic than we had imagined. “Not since Galileo aimed a small 30-power telescope into the night sky in 1609,” said scientist David Leckrone at Goddard, “has humanity’s vision of the universe been so revolutionized in such a short time span by a single instrument.”
The total cost over the 30-years of design, development and operations has exceeded, $6,000M, which concerns some scientists not granted access to the Hubble. The disproportionate share of publicity and resources also stirs resentment.
The Hubble is a collaboration, not in competition, with the larger ground-based telescopes that collect more light. Because HST is outside the distortion of the atmosphere, it resolves greater detail in both the visible and infrared spectrum. From Earth, ultraviolet wavelengths are blocked by the atmosphere; but the space-based astrological platform easily detects them.
The telescope was named after Edwin P. Hubble who first demonstrated that galaxies exist beyond our own Milky Way, and that these conglomerations of stars are all hurtling apart from one another.
The Whirlpool Galaxy M51 this month is seen by HST to be triggering an unusual density of new star formations. These bright spots are thought to be caused by gravitational fallout from a close encounter with another relatively nearby galaxy. Photos are clear enough to display a “dust disk” at the nucleus which may be fueled by a super massive black hole, the remains of a collapsed star.
Black Holes are not holes at all, but instead masses so dense that no light can escape their incomprehensible gravitational contraction. The measurements of stellar distances has led cosmologists to estimate the universe at about 12-15 billion years old. Evidences of otherwise invisible black holes are found at the center of distant galaxies.
The refined data reveals that the universe expansion is accelerating. Scientists wonder why. They theorize and search for validation of something they call “dark energy” composing more than two-thirds of space.
Earlier this month, HST recorded a supernova (exploding star) about ten billion light years away. This eruption interests scientists because, to them, distance and time are the same. The telescope is literally a time machine, viewing the segments of the cosmos when the universe was only a pup.
Although HST is nearly a teenager, it’s modular design has allowed for constant upgrades. In fact, later this year (Nov. 19th), Hubble is scheduled for its fourth maintenance visit by Shuttle astronauts. Among other critical component replacements and upgrades, the crew of Columbia will install a new camera ten times more powerful.
The life of the Hubble Space Telescope is projected for at least another decade, by which time the answers to these ponderings may be better understood, or at least more questions poised along the corridor of new observations. Much more to come from an observatory that was once a colossal laughingstock.
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In other news, NASA is scheduling Shuttle flight SDS-100 to join with the space station under construction on April 19, 2001. During the 11-day mission, astronauts will install, activate and test the Canadian built 300 foot robotic arm. In June, the seven-member crew of STS-104 will attach a new airlock to the station.
See for yourself these beautiful Hubble Space Telescope pictures and learn
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