Hubble Space Telescope - Above The Turbulent Atmosphere, The Design, Hubble's Blurry Vision, Endeavor To The Rescue
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Floating in orbit approximately 380 miles (612 km) above the earth, the 12.5-ton Hubble Space Telescope has peered farther into the Universe than any telescope before it. The Hubble, which was launched in 1990, has produced images with unprecedented resolution at visible, near-ultraviolet, and near-infrared wavelengths since its originally faulty optics were corrected in 1993. Although ground-based technology is finally starting to catch up—the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope atop Cerro Paranal, Chile, can now produce narrow-field images even sharper than Hubble's—the Hubble continues to produce a stream of unique observations. Over the last decade, the Hubble has revolutionized astronomy.
The Hubble was the first of the four great observatories planned by the United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This series of orbital telescopes also includes the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (launched 1991), the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (launched 1999), and the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (scheduled for launch in 2003). Together, the light-sensing abilities of the Great Observatories span much of the electromagnetic spectrum. They are designed to do so because each part of the spectrum conveys different astronomical information.
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The twinkling of stars is a barrier between astronomers and the information they wish to gather. In reality, stars do not twinkle but burn steadily; they only appear to ground observers to twinkle because atmospheric turbulence distorts their light waves en route to us. Although telescopes on Earth's surface incorporate enormous mirrors to gather starlight and sophisticated instruments to m…
The Hubble Space Telescope is a large cylinder sporting long, rectangular solar panels on either side like the winding stems of a giant toy. Almost 43 ft (13 m) long and more than 14 ft (4.2 m) in diameter, this cylinder houses a large mirror to gather light and a host of instruments designed to analyze the light thus gathered. The telescope itself is a Ritchey-Chretien Casse-grain type that consi…
After the Hubble's launch in 1990, astronomers eagerly awaited its first observations. When they saw the test images, however, it quickly became clear that something was seriously wrong: the Hubble had defective vision. Scientists soon realized that the primary mirror of the space telescope suffered from a spherical aberration, an error in its shape that caused it to focus light in a thin s…
The design and manufacture of a space telescope like the Hubble is a large project that takes many years; of necessity, the design must be finalized early on. As a result, by the time the observatory reaches orbit its scientific instruments rarely represent the state of the art. Having this constraint in mind, the telescope engineers designed the Hubble's instruments as modular units that c…
Making observations with an orbital telescope is not a simple process. The telescope must be instructed where to point to acquire a new target, how to move in order to avoid light contamination from the Sun and Moon, how long to observe and with what instruments, what data format to use for transmission of result, how to orient its radio antennas to send and receive future commands, and so forth. …
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