AST 123
Essay #2
Telescopes function as one of the most significant gateways to the science of space and
work to give everyone from children to scientists a fascinating perspective of our universe.
Though most of us probably imagine the long cylinder-shaped telescopes we would look through
on a tripod as kids, the technology of telescopes now, go incredibly far beyond that. The
telescope that has contributed more to science than any other does not stand on a tripod; in fact,
it does not even reside on earth. The Hubble space telescope is currently in space orbiting our
planet at speeds near 17,000 miles per hour.
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24th, 1990, from the John F. Kennedy
Space Center aboard the Discovery space shuttle. Since its launch nearly 30 years ago, it has
made over 1.3 observations. It has provided us with answers to some of science's greatest
mysteries while also opening the door to ones we never knew existed before. The Hubble Space
Telescope is named after Edwin P. Hubble, who was the scientist that proved we live in an
expanding universe. Since this telescope works beyond our earth's atmosphere, it is not affected
by any weather systems or light pollution, which lowers the ceiling for observatories and other
sites on earth. Due to this clear view that Hubble has of our universe, it can see UV light, which
is otherwise blocked by our planet's atmosphere. The ability to see visible and near-infrared light
along with UV light gives Hubble a clear view of everything from planets to blacks holes and
even distant galaxies.
Though the mere ability to successfully launch and operate Hubble is praiseworthy, the
Hubble Space Telescope's journey would not be half as astounding if it wasn't for the library of
information it has shared with us along the way. From a "close" range, Hubble can aid NASA
scientists with planetary missions in our own solar system. The telescope can observe storms on
different planets along with the effects of seasonal changes. Hubble revealed the shrinking of
Jupiter's red spot and also saw that Uranus has some of the brightest clouds of all the outer
planets. Additionally, Hubble aided in proving the existence of supermassive black holes, which
are believed to have formed with some of the earliest stars and have slowly been growing since.
In its second servicing mission, a tool called The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph was
installed on Hubble, which gave it the ability to calculate the central mass that given stars are
orbiting. Being able to calculate this gave scientists an idea of how powerful a central mass of
orbit was because the speed of the star indicates the strength of the mass.
One of Hubble's other most tremendous contributions to our knowledge of science comes from
what it's taught us about the origins of our universe. The Hubble Deep Field was a detailed
time-lapse photo taken by Hubble, where it aimed at a single point collecting light and creating
an image for ten straight days. The deep field was able to detect galaxies whose light had been
traveling over 10 billion years to reach Hubble and also taught us that our universe is around 13
billion years old. Although the original deep field image was groundbreaking, astronomers
continued working towards even more effective ways to use Hubble's deep field technology. In
the Ultraviolet Coverage of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field Astronomers used UV light to detect
how stars and galaxies grew from when they were very young. This image was able to show us
almost 10,000 galaxies that were born as close to 200 million years after the Big bang.
Though Hubble might not be the newest or most technologically advanced telescope that
the world has ever seen, it has taught us multitudes more than any other device has about space,
and the creation of our universe. Hubble data has been used in over 15,000 publications from
astronomers and racks in nearly a million citations from these works in other papers. After Thirty
years and 150 terabytes of data later, there's no denying the incredible contributions the Hubble
Space Telescope has made to science.
Works Cited
“Black Holes.” HubbleSite.org, NASA, hubblesite.org/contents/articles/black-holes.html.
Garner, Rob. “About the Hubble Space Telescope.” NASA, NASA, 27 Jan. 2015,
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/story/index.html.
“Hubble Deep Fields.” HubbleSite.org, hubblesite.org/contents/articles/hubble-deep-fields.
“Solar System.” HubbleSite.org,
hubblesite.org/science/solar-system#section-d0d69f25-9749-4441-badb-1ab6daf33674.
“The Telescope.” HubbleSite.org, hubblesite.org/mission-and-telescope/the-telescope.