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.
