The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990 after 15 years of development, but it was soon discovered that its mirror was flawed, causing blurry images. The team, led by Charlie Pellerin, was devastated, and the project was mocked in the media. However, they found a solution in a corrective device called COSTAR, which was installed during a spacewalk by astronauts, including Kathryn Thornton. The repair was successful, and Hubble began to capture stunning images of the universe, making groundbreaking discoveries and helping to answer some of the biggest mysteries in astronomy. The telescope has continued to operate for over 25 years, providing new insights into the universe and its origins.
Here are the key facts extracted from the text:
1. NASA released a historic image on March 4th, 2016, of a galaxy whose light took 13.4 billion years to reach us.
2. The image is a photograph of the universe in its infancy, representing just 3% of its current age.
3. The Hubble space telescope was responsible for capturing the image.
4. The Hubble telescope was launched to solve a problem with measuring the expansion of the universe using ground-based telescopes.
5. The Hubble project was initiated in response to the loss of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986.
6. Charlie Pellerin was in charge of the Hubble mission.
7. The primary role of Hubble was to show that NASA could still accomplish difficult tasks after the Challenger disaster.
8. Hubble was equipped with six gyroscopes to maintain stability, each with a wheel spinning 320 times per second.
9. The gyroscopes were designed to prevent image smearing due to tiny imprecisions.
10. Hubble was launched on the space shuttle Discovery.
11. The telescope was released into space and began operating, but initial images were fuzzy.
12. The problem was discovered to be a spherically aberrated mirror, which was ground to the wrong prescription.
13. The mirror was perfect but had a tiny error, estimated to be a 50th of a human hair.
14. A machine called Costar was designed to correct the light beam entering the telescope, effectively acting as "glasses" for Hubble.
15. Costar was installed during a spacewalk by astronauts, including Kathryn Thornton.
16. The repair was successful, and Hubble began taking clear images.
17. Hubble's images helped unlock scientific mysteries, including the expansion of the universe and the age of the universe.
18. Hubble can see objects up to 11 billion light years away, allowing scientists to study the universe as it was in the past.
19. Hubble discovered thousands of galaxies in a previously blank part of the sky, revealing that the universe is full of galaxies in every direction.
20. Hubble is a time machine, allowing scientists to look back in time and see the universe as it was in the past.
21. The Hubble space telescope continues to operate and amaze scientists 25 years after its launch.