Hubble Space Telescope Essay

One of the greatest accomplishments towards further exploring the space was being made possible due to the launch of Hubble Space Telescope. It was termed the continuation of the journey. Hubble is a telescope that circles the Earth. Its position higher than the atmosphere, that distorts and blocks the light that reaches our planet, provides it with a view of the universe that usually way surpasses that of ground-based telescopes. Because of five servicing missions and more than 25 years of operation, our read of the universe and our place inside it’s never been an equivalent.

Source: www.hubble.org

From the beginning of mankind to a mere four hundred years past, all information we have related to universe came through observations with the naked eye. The Galileo, an uranologist had started to use his telescope for the first time in history (1610) toward the heavens. In the same way, we learned that Saturn had rings, and Jupiter had moons. Then nebulous patch across the center of the sky called Milky Way, the galaxy wasn’t a cloud but a group of in numerous stars. However, in a couple of years, our concept regarding nature would be forever modified.

With the passage of time, the modifications came in telescopes especially in size, quality and in power too. For best outputs, they were deployed far from city lights and above the haze of the atmosphere. Edwin Hubble, for whom the Hubble Telescope is named, used the largest telescope of his day in the 1920s at the Mt. Wilson Observatory near Pasadena, Calif; in order to discover galaxies beyond our own (nasa.gov).

The original schedule for Hubble Telescope was in 1983 to launch but didn’t get off the ground until 1990. The received images were blurry as realized by scientists when It was launched. The reason behind was the telescope’s mirror, that grounded ever so slightly to the wrong thickness. The drawback surfaced due to an improper use of the testing equipment during the mirror’s construction.

During 1993, hardware was installed by the first Hubble servicing mission to adjust the flaw in the mirror. As a result, the telescope quickly started functioning to its full potential. It discovered new information at every type of measurements, from the solar system to the entire observable universe. Consequently, “Hubble then able to find four new moons around Pluto, exposed that galaxies frequently collide and merge together, drastically improved measurements of the age of the universe, and demonstrated that space is not only expanding but spreading out faster and faster” (space.com).

Hubble contribution is beyond the expectations and has provided over a decade of valuable science and beautiful images. Today, if ended its operations due to any reason, it still been labeled a successful. As there is no end to success, only sky is the limit. Plans are in the pipeline to explore more and improved further instruments to Hubble. Since the launch and deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope, it is known as an instrument with one of the greatest redemption stories in science history.

Hubble, the observatory, is the pioneer optical telescope to be placed in space, the ultimate mountaintop., Hubble has an unobstructed view of the universe, whether it comes to distortion of the atmosphere, far above rain clouds, or light pollution. Scientists examined the most distant stars and galaxies as well as the planets in our solar system with the help of Hubble. The sheer quantity of natural philosophy based on Hubble observations has also helped make it one of the history’s most important observatories. More than 10,0000 scientific used Hubble data for the publication of their articles.

Hubble has created greatest achievement in exploring and perceptive the Universe. The discoveries like Extra Solar Organic Matter and the black holes existence are the most precious ones. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has made the primary detection ever of an organic molecule in the atmosphere of a Jupiter sized planet orbiting another star. This innovation brings us towards identifying the signs of life on a planet outside our solar system. The molecule found is methane CH4, which under the right circumstances can play a key role in prebiotic chemistry. And we all ware of that the chemical reactions considered necessary to form life.

Source: www.hubble.org

This discovery proves that Hubble and upcoming space missions, such as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, can detect organic molecules on planets around other stars by using spectroscopy, which splits light into its components to reveal the ”fingerprints” of various chemicals. ”This is a crucial stepping stone to eventually characterizing prebiotic molecules on planets where life could exist,” said Mark Swain of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., who led the team that made the discovery. Swain is lead author of a paper appearing in the March 20 issue of Nature (hubble.org).

Another important discovery was the invention of three black holes in three normal galaxies. According to professional astronomers, all galaxies could harbor supermassive black holes that once powered-driven quasars (extremely glowing nuclei of galaxies) but are now currently quiescent.

Source: www.hubble.org

This conclusion relies on a census of 27 nearby galaxies carried out by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes in Hawaii, which are being used to conduct a spectroscopic and photometric survey of galaxies to find black holes which have consumed the mass of millions of Sun-like stars. The conclusive findings tell us that the Supermassive black holes are so common, nearly every large galaxy has one. A black hole’s mass is proportional to the mass of the host galaxy, so that, let’s say, a galaxy twice as massive as another would have a black hole that is also twice as massive. This discovery suggests that the expansion of the black hole is linked to the formation of the galaxy in which it is situated. The number and masses of the black holes found are consistent with what would have been required to power the quasars (hubble.org).

Works Cited

Nasa, https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/story/index.html

Hubble, hubble.org

space.com