Almost two years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope celebrated its thirtieth anniversary of orbiting the Earth and discovering the secrets of the universe. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, 2020 turned out not to be a great year for celebrations. For this reason, and in preparation for the launch of a new, more modern telescope – James Webb – NASA has set up a fun website to keep us amateur astronomers and astrophysicists, and really anyone with even the slightest interest in the universe, entertained:
It’s a generator of images taken by the Hubble for every day of the year. So you can find out what the space telescope discovered on its birthday. Was it a black hole? An unknown galaxy? A star cluster? It’s up to you to find out!
Hubble: a complex yet popular astronomer
Hubble was launched into orbit in April 1990 as a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency. It is not the first space telescope to orbit the Earth, but it is one of the largest and most versatile. Moreover, in its more than thirty years of operation, it has proven to be both an indispensable instrument for space exploration and a boon for public relations in astronomy.
With its 2.4-meter mirror and instruments for observing in the ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, it has captured some of the most detailed images in visible light of distant galaxies, star systems and nebulae. These in turn have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics.
But why a telescope floating in space instead of a conventional telescope on a mountaintop? The Hubble telescope’s orbit outside the Earth’s distorting atmosphere makes it possible to take extremely high-resolution images with much less background light than ground-based telescopes. However, this comes at a price: maintenance is carried out in space by astronauts – the telescope’s systems were repaired, upgraded and replaced during five space shuttle missions.
Unfortunately, even good old Hubble is not immune to the passage of time: in December last year, the James Webb Space Telescope was launched to take over its older brother’s mission. However, according to NASA, the Hubble has much more to offer: It will still be in use until 2030-2040.
In any case, the visual legacy of this telescope is immense and can be viewed by anyone: On the official Hubble website, you can find 87 pages of photos of the universe dating back to August 13, 1990. And if you’re interested in even more stunning images from space, NASA’ s “Astronomy Picture of the Day“ website has a list of photos taken by all of the agency’s telescopes since June 16, 1995.
Adapted from an article written by Max Hailer for Secret Munich.