The Hubble space telescope has shown the world many beautiful pictures of the greatest frontier and tested great theories since its launch in 1990 and I was ecstatic to hear NASA will be sending up a crew to prolong the life of the spaceborne platform.
The servicing mission will add six new batteries, six gyroscopes, a flight guidance sensor, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Wide Field Camera 3. They will be by far the best instruments ever sent to Hubble.
Source: NewScientist
The Hubble has a long list of scientific accomplishments, including offering direct observation of the universe as it was 12 billion years ago, discovering black holes at the centre of galaxies and collecting data on the size and age of the universe. Its spectacular images also helped popularize astronomy.
Source: TheStar
Edwin Hubble would have been proud to have such a telescope to be named after him. As an astronomy nut, I can’t wait to see what else Hubble will uncover. 😀
I once read an interview with the NASA director who originally decided to kill the Hubble project. He was quoted as saying “it was possibly the most unpopular decision I have ever made”
I’m glad the brass has changed its mind.
It was the previous NASA administration that called off servicing Hubble because Bush told America that it would return to the moon. Funding to every department was cut to make way for this new project. Even the current NASA admins didn’t want to fix Hubble, it was due to astronomers lobbying directly to Congress.
In any case, I’m happy that Hubble will continue on shedding the mysteries of the universe. 🙂