Hubble Space Telescope facts for kids

Hubble Space Telescope

One of the most famous images taken by the Hubble telescope: the "Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle nebula

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is one of the most famous telescopes. It is the first optical space observatory telescope. Being above the atmosphere means it can see the sky more clearly than a telescope on the ground, because the atmosphere blurs starlight before it reaches Earth. Named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble, the Hubble Space Telescope can observe 24 hours a day. The main mirror is 94.5 inches (2.4 meters) across. The telescope can take pictures of things so far away it would be nearly impossible to see them from anywhere else.

It actually observes less than 20% of the time. It was made by both NASA and the ESA working together. It is 600 km in space and was launched on April 24, 1990. It completes a full orbit of Earth every 97 minutes. That means it travels at 5 miles (10 km) per second. If you were going this speed on Earth, you would be able to get from New York to San Francisco in 10 minutes.

The Hubble itself is the size of a large school bus, but still small enough to fit inside the cargo bay of a Space Shuttle. It was repaired in 1993 due to problems in the picture quality.

Launch

The telescope was launched in 1990 by a space shuttle. When it entered orbit, everything seemed fine. But there was a problem with the telescope that was not discovered until it started taking pictures.

Astronauts Musgrave and Hoffman installing corrective optics during SM1

Improvement in Hubble images after SM1

Problems

When the HST took its first pictures, astronomers were happy to see the images, but they were not as sharp and as crisp as expected. Telescopes in space can take better pictures than telescopes on Earth, but for some reason the pictures were not better than the pictures taken on Earth. They found a problem with the telescope's mirror. The mirror was not curved right, but only by 2.2 microns (1/50th as thick as a piece of paper). Still, this was enough to cause the images to be blurred. Some said that Hubble was nearsighted.

Repair

Another space shuttle was soon sent up to repair the space telescope. The repair was not easy. The astronauts had to install some small mirrors to correct the light from the big mirror. The big mirror could still be used. It took five days of space walks. When astronaut Story Musgrave opened one of the doors on Hubble to install a new camera, the door would not close, so Musgrave and the other astronauts had to think of a creative way to get around the problem. Eventually, Hubble was fixed.

Repairs and servicing missions have been made to the Hubble Space Telescope five times to keep it in orbit and make it even better as technology improved. The space shuttle program was kept going longer than planned to send an extra trip up to the Hubble Space Telescope for a final fix.

Accomplishments

Sombrero Galaxy in infrared light (Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope)

Early on, in 1994, Hubble stared at what was thought to be an empty area of space for ten days. It found there were actually many galaxies even there, but very faint and very far away. No other telescope could have seen that.
In 2004, Hubble looked back several billion years to the first galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.
It was able to help settle the age of the universe at about 13.7 billion years. Before the Hubble, scientists only knew it was between 10 and 20 billion years old.
It took the first picture of a planet outside our solar system, and was able to find what type of atmosphere other planets might have.

Future

Hubble will be replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope which will be located even further from Earth. There are now other telescopes in orbit, like the Herschel Space Observatory and the Kepler Spacecraft, which was specially made for finding Earth-like planets around other stars.

Images for kids

Astronaut Owen Garriott works next to Skylab's manned solar space observatory, 1973
Grinding of Hubble's primary mirror at Perkin-Elmer, March 1979
The backup mirror, by Kodak; its inner support structure can be seen because it is not coated with a reflective surface
The OTA, metering truss, and secondary baffle are visible in this image of Hubble during early construction.
Hubble Control Center at Goddard Space Flight Center, 1999
Hubble's low orbit means many targets are visible for somewhat less than half of an orbit's elapsed time, since they are blocked from view by the Earth for one-half of each orbit.
STS-31 lifts off, carrying Hubble into orbit.
Hubble being deployed from Discovery in 1990.
An extract from a WF/PC image shows the light from a star spread over a wide area instead of being concentrated on a few pixels.
The core of spiral galaxy M100, imaged with Hubble before and after corrective optics.
COSTAR being removed in 2009
Nickel–hydrogen battery pack for Hubble
One of Hubble's most famous images, "Pillars of Creation" shows stars forming in the Eagle Nebula (2014 image).
The Frontier Fields program studied MACS0416.1-2403
Star cluster Pismis 24 with nebula
Hubble's STIS UV and ACS visible light are combined to reveal Saturn's southern aurora.
Brown spots mark Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 impact sites on Jupiter's southern hemisphere. Imaged by Hubble.
Hubble Extreme Deep Field image of space in the constellation Fornax
Evolution of detecting the early Universe
Hubble precision stellar distance measurement has been extended 10 times further into the Milky Way.
Data analysis of a spectrum reveals the chemistry of hidden clouds
In 2001, NASA polled internet users to find out what they would most like Hubble to observe; they overwhelmingly selected the Horsehead Nebula.
Hubblecast logo
A pillar of gas and dust in the Carina Nebula. This Wide Field Camera 3 image, dubbed "Mystic Mountain", was released in 2010 to commemorate Hubble's 20th anniversary in space.
Hubble views the Fomalhaut system, imaged with the offline ACS/HRC channel
Illustration of the Soft Capture Mechanism (SCM) installed on Hubble
Some of the Carina nebula by WFC3
DF-224 in Hubble, before it was replaced in 1999