Hubble Space Telescope: “It’s like keeping a laser pointer on a dime 330km away for 24 hours”.The telescope has also increased our understanding of the Universe’s age, the atmosphere of exoplanets and how galaxies evolve. Hubble is also credited with discovering Pluto’s two moons (Nix and Hydra), and how nearly every major galaxy is anchored by a black hole at its heart. The telescope has brought light to the causes of gamma-ray bursts, how planetary collisions work, the expansion of the Universe and even hidden dark matter. Through its 30+ year mission, the Hubble Space Telescope has taken more than 1.4 million observations, with 16,000 studies using this data. What has the Hubble Space Telescope discovered? It’s possible to track the Hubble Space Telescope's location in real-time here. Inclined 28.5 degrees to the equator, it orbits the Earth once every 97 minutes. The Hubble Space Telescope orbits 547 kilometres (340 miles) above Earth and travels 8km (5 miles) every second. Where is the Hubble Space Telescope right now? (You can listen to our podcast with the Kathryn Sullivan, who was part of the mission). When first launched, a tiny flaw in this mirror meant Hubble could not focus its lens, with all images captured appearing blurry.įortunately, three years later, in December 1993, the telescope was repaired by the Space Shuttle Endeavour crew across 11 days and five spacewalks. The telescope relies on a huge 2.4m (7.8 ft) mirror to make its observations. Weighing 11,110 kg (just less than two African elephants), the Hubble Space Telescope is about 13.2m long – about the length of a bus. The furthest galaxy ever observed by the Hubble telescope is the GN-z11 galaxy, about 13.4 billion light-years away.Īs the galaxy is so far away and light can only travel so fast (299,792,458 meters a second), Hubble is effectively looking back in time when viewing very distant objects.Īlthough Hubble viewed GN-z11 as it was about 13.4 billion years ago, the galaxy will now be located around 32 billion light-years from Earth owing to the Universe’s expansion. Questions like ‘How far can the Hubble Space Telescope see?’, 'How big actually is it?' and ‘What will replace it?’.įind out the answers (and else everything you need to know about the NASA satellite) below. But despite all its amazing discoveries, you may have several questions about this technological marvel. Barring any unforeseen events, Hubble should keep operating through at least 2020, and perhaps longer, NASA officials have said.įollow Mike Wall on Twitter and Google+. Spacewalking astronauts repaired its flawed primary mirror in December 1993, and the famous telescope has been helping astronomers make big discoveries ever since. Hubble launched in April 1990 aboard the space shuttle Discovery. (The northern ice cap is quite small, because it's currently summer in Mars' northern hemisphere.) "These darker regions are covered by bedrock from ancient lava flows and other volcanic features."Ĭlouds blanket the dark volcanic plains of Syrtis Major, on the right side of Mars, and cover the extensive south polar ice cap as well. "South of Arabia Terra, running east to west along the equator, are the long, dark features known as Sinus Sabaeus (to the east) and Sinus Meridiani (to the west)," they added. "The landscape is densely cratered and heavily eroded, indicating that it could be among the oldest features on the planet." "The orange area in the center of the image is Arabia Terra, a vast upland region," ESA officials wrote. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Annotated view of Mars as it was observed shortly before opposition in May 2016 by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
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