Hubble Telescope
Images Source: NASA (Public Domain)
Right: 1993 Shuttle Mission
Left: Pillars of Creation in Eagle Nebula (1995) Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University)
Would you watch TV if it just had a fuzzy picture?
For centuries, astronomers endured just that - fuzzy pictures - as they could only watch the heavens through the annoying distortion of the Earth's atmosphere. Sure, we all like the scintillation of twinkling stars, but if you're a professional studying space, you want as crisp and clear a picture as you can get. (And you thought we were only worried about light pollution!) Oddly enough, the idea of space-based observing had its genesis in a 1946 paper by Lyman Spitzer. Remember, we had yet to even launch a rocket into space at this point. Still, Spitzer's dogged persistence (as well as his having the advantage of being correct), directly led to the Hubble Telescope.
Built by NASA and named for famed astronomer Edwin Hubble, the Hubble Telescope took 8 years to manufacturer and nearly as long a time to launch. Though completed in 1985, it wasn't until April 25, 1990 that NASA finally placed this large (94.5 inch mirror) telescope into orbit. Almost immediately, the pictures proved less impressive than expected. It turned out, one edge of the mirror was too flat. A 1993 Shuttle mission corrected this problem and the telescope was serviced once more in 1997. In May 2009, NASA astronauts made their last scheduled service mission to Hubble.
Despite the mirror's anamoly, the Hubble Telescope produced stunning photographs from it's very beginning as once fuzzy stars displayed a stark clarity regular photographers couldn't match from Earth and television viewers wouldn't begin to imagine until the advent of digital signals.
The Hubble Telescope has revolutionized the study of astronomy by provided precise images deep into the far reaches of the universe. These images range from extraordinary close-ups of our solar system's planets to galaxies far far away and just on the edge of time itself. While everyday people enjoy the spectacular colors in the photographs, astrophysicts have access to a complete spectrum from the ultravoilet to the infrared. It is these invisible parts of the spectrum that have greatly advanced our understanding of the inner workings of the universe - from stellar evolution to the very beginnings of the cosmos.
The Hubble Telescope: The HDTV of Space!