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The Extraordinary Hubble Space Telescope
Now that the billionaires are back from “space”, here’s some actual space news: The Hubble space telescope is back online after experiencing memory issues with its onboard computer a month ago. This wasn’t the first time Hubble experienced issues, it had a huge problem when it launched. Here’s the story:
Groundwork:
NASA wanted to find out how and when did our universe began. One way to do that is by observing space, but there’s a limit to the images seen from the ground due to the atmosphere. Hence, Hubble, the world’s first space-based telescope, was designed. Being in orbit posed another challenge, Hubble would be constantly spinning around, too unsteady to capture images. The NASA engineers worked hard to install gyroscopes to stabilise Hubble for sharp images.
Launch:
On 25th April 1990, Hubble was deployed into our orbit. The first images taken shocked everyone as they came back BLURRY. NASA discovered that the blurriness was due to a flawed mirror (the curvature of the mirror was off by 2 microns). They were too focused on the gyroscopes that they made a rookie error in the mirror.
Correction:
Fortunately, the problem could be solved by installing additional mirrors to redirect and refocus light to the primary mirror. Basically, the Eye in the Sky needed Glasses. A crew of astronauts were sent up to install the corrective mirrors. After 11 days of calibration, the images came back SHARP.
Thanks to Hubble and its team, truly scientific discoveries were made about the cosmos and how it came to be. We also got a ton of stellar pics like this one 🌌:
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