Astronomy
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble telescope is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble whose observations of variable stars in distant galaxies confirmed that the universe was expanding and gave support to the Big Bang theory. It’s a large telescope in space and launched in Apr 24, 1990.
The Hubble telescope was built by the United States space agency NASA with contributions from the European Space Agency. Hubble uses radio waves to send the pictures through the air back to Earth.
Hubble has helped scientists learn about our solar system and has helped scientists understand how planets and galaxies form. Pictures from the telescope has helped scientists to know more about the whole universe. It has also spotted black holes.
Hubble telescope was in news recently as it stopped working in June 2021. But the problem was fixed in July 2021 and the telescope was brought back into scientific operations.
Image Credit: Book: SPACE, STARS AND THE BEGINNING OF TIME by Elaine Scott
How the Telescope works:
Light from the stars reaches to the telescope, enters and then analyzed by its instruments. The collected data is sent to a relay satellite. The satellite passes these information to a ground station in White Sands, New Mexico, and then, onto Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.
References:
1. https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-the-hubble-space-telecope-k4.html
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope
3. Book: SPACE, STARS AND THE BEGINNING OF TIME by Elaine Scott