Currently, the space shuttle Atlantis and crew are out in space repairing the Hubble telescope. They’ll be replacing its batteries, updating the camera, installing thermal covers, and replacing the data-control unit. It’s a risky mission, but it should give the telescope another five to ten years. The Hubble telescope has made enormous contributions to the field of astronomy, helping us to learn more about our solar system and the universe. If you want to see some of Hubble’s work in action, stop by the Kingman Museum’s planetarium! We have a program called ViewSpace running between shows on a television in the planetarium. ViewSpace shows content downloaded directly from the Hubble telescope.
To learn more about the Hubble repair mission follow astronaut, Mike Massimino, on Twitter, Astro_Mike.
The Hubble telescope is a large telescope orbiting Earth. Because it does not look through the Earth’s atmosphere it is able to see things not visible through telescopes on Earth. Hubble has provided us with accurate distance measurements of far away galaxies, images of early galaxies after the big bang, information about black holes, the origin of gamma rays, and the life cycles of stars.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment