The Hubble Telescope is the end result of a joint program between the European Space Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) whose aim is to operate a long-lived observatory in outer space to benefit the international astronomical community. The dream to construct the Hubble Telescope was first conceived in the 1940s and later designed and built in the 1970s and 80s, and became operational a decade later in the 1990s. It was meant to provide a permanent means of observing outer spaces and has special grapple features to help protect against equipment and instrument failures. The Hubble Telescope has a complement of scientific instruments that include two cameras, two spectrographs as well as fine guidance sensors. Placed into low-earth orbit, the Hubble Telescope’s location above the Earth’s atmosphere allows these instruments to produce high resolution images of all those mysterious astronomical objects that are the object of much of mankind’s continuing curiosity.
The advantage of such a telescope is, that unlike ground based telescopes that are unable to provide the kind of resolutions required to study space-based objects, and the Hubble Telescope can provide resolution of ten times greater as well as fat better images than ground based telescopes.
Plans for Hubble Telescope Change
It was originally meant to be returned to Earth every five years for refurbishment and also have on-orbit servicing every two and a half years. However, due to contamination as well as concerns regarding loading it back aboard the shuttle for servicing on Earth, it was not possible to return it to ground, and so on-orbit servicing was deemed to be adequate to help maintain the Hubble Telescope for the rest of its design life of fifteen years.
Ever since its launch and deployment into space in 1990, the Hubble Telescope has had to cope with spherical aberrations and the STS-61 (Endeavor) mission three years later obviated the effects of spherical aberrations to put it back into full functionality once again. The Hubble Telescope has managed to observe a “blizzard” of particles in a disk surrounding a young star and shown the process by which planets grow out of tiny dust grains.
These and other exciting discoveries can be received on a PDA such as a Palm or Pocket PC or to cell phones thanks to new technologies which allows individuals to view latest images as well as read up on latest discoveries. In addition, it is also possible to get on-the-go astronomy news from pod casts as well as monthly Hubble news wraps through SkyWatch.
