The hubble space telescope is a large telescope in space, and it was launched into space through a space shuttle discovery in 1990. The hubble space telescope orbits about 547 kilometers above earth. That is equivalent to traveling from the east coast of the universe to the western coast in 10 minutes. What does the hubble space telescope do? Hubble takes pictures of objects in the sky such as planets, stars and galaxies. The hubble space telescope has made more than one million observations. It has taken pictures of the birth and death of many stars, galaxies billions of light years away.

How is hubble different from telescopes on earth?

Earth’s atmosphere alters and blocks the light that comes from the sky. The hubble space telescope orbits above Earth’s atmosphere, and that gives it a better view of the universe than telescopes have on ground level. As Hubble orbits Earth, the fine guidance sensors lock onto stars. The fine guidance sensors are a part of the pointing control system. The telescope is known to capture a target that is one mile away without moving more than a width of hair. Once that target is acquired, Hubble collects all the light with its primary mirror. The mirror can collect about 40,000 times more light than the human eye. The light then bounces off the mirror to another mirror. The second mirror focuses the light back through a hole in the first mirror. From there the light shines to Hubble’s special instruments.

What are Hubble’s most important discoveries?

Hubble has taken many images have helped scientists estimate the age and size of the universe. Scientists believe the universe is almost 14 billion years old, and they have come to this conclusion with the help of Hubble. Hubble has also detected black holes, played a key role in the discovery of dark energy.

-Sanaa Dalvi