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Introduction to Hubble Space Telescope
Launched on 25th April, 1990; the Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most famous telescopes till today. It is one of the most well-known telescopes so far. This telescope has a primary mirror with a length of 2.4 meters. We have been seeing many exciting images of far and distant objects provided by the Hubble space telescope.
Many recent observations in the sky have been made with the help of Hubble Telescope. It can observe the universe much better than those telescopes that are located on earth.
The reason is because of the fact that the observations made by Hubble is free from the filtering effect of our earth’s atmosphere that prevents the ultra-violet and infrared light rays to pass through it. Because of this reason, the images provided by Hubble are not blurred.
After it was launched in the space in 1990, it became and is still the
most important telescope the world of astronomy has ever known. Many ground
breaking discoveries in the field of astronomy is the result of Hubble
space telescope.
Astronomers have been assisted a lot or wholly by the Hubble space telescope and it has been helping the astronomers in understanding many astrophysics problems.
Another interesting fact about the Hubble space telescope is that the most famous optical image; the Hubble’s ultra deep field is taken by the Hubble space telescope.
There was many hurdles in the development of this telescope e.g., delays, budget problems etc. As soon as it was launched, it was discovered the main mirror that was used in the telescope was suffering from a spherical deviation that is badly affecting the expected capabilities of the telescope.
Since the Hubble space telescope is a very important research tool available at that time and still today, it was important to fix that problem. So NASA, in 1993, sent a team of astronauts into the space to fix this problem.
The astronauts were successful in solving the problem and the Hubble space telescope started working with its potential capabilities.
All the telescopes not only demand deployment, they also demand regular maintenance and standard operations. Hubble space telescope is located in space so its maintenance is quite difficult as compared to the maintenance of those telescopes that are on ground.
For the maintenance of the Hubble space telescope, NASA use to send its team of astronauts into the space. Many tasks of stabilizing the gyroscopes have failed over the years. The gyroscopes are primarily used to direct the Hubble space telescope. Servicing, maintenance and replacement of these gyroscope is really vital for the Hubble space telescope.
There have been many problems that occurred in the far and near past with the Hubble space telescope after it was launched. One of the latest problem occurred in the first month of 2007 when the camera of the Hubble space telescope suddenly stopped working. Only the ultraviolet channel is usable.
Also it has been declared that a reboost is required in order to increase the orbital diameter otherwise the Hubble space telescope might enter the earth’s atmosphere in 2010. A service mission is planned to fix this problem and it has been scheduled for September 2008.
Latest interesting news about Hubble Space Telescope is that the Hubble
space telescope, that has been providing us with lots of vital information
today, might be replaced by James Webb Space Telescope in 2013