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The Hubble Space Telescope
A
1920s
1930s
1940s
HUBBLE
1950s
TIMELINE
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
1920s
2000s
A H U B B L E S PA C E T E L E S C O P E T I M E L I N E , A S O F A P R I L 2 0 1 0
For fifty years, an idea;
for the last twenty years, a reality
The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most
space observatory ever built. Thanks to routine
powerful and prolific science instruments ever
maintenance and upgrades Hubble is 100 times
conceived by humans. From its perch about 350
more powerful than when it was launched. In
miles above Earth, Hubble sees farther and sharper
addition to its scientific importance, Hubble brings
than any previous telescope. Hubble discoveries
cosmic wonders into millions of homes and schools
have revolutionized nearly all areas of current
worldwide, allowing the public to be co-explorers
astronomical research, from planetary science to
with this wondrous observatory.
cosmology. The telescope has imaged more
than 30,000 celestial objects and produced over
570,000 pictures.
Here is a brief tour of highlights in the history of
Hubble — from the idea of a space telescope, first
proposed in the 1920s, to construction and launch
A series of heroic astronaut servicing missions
of Hubble, and onward through the next glorious
to Hubble have made it the longest-operating
years — 20 of them, as of 2010 — and counting.
HUBBLE
3
TIMELINE
1920s to 1970s
From idea to design and build …
1920s
1923
Famed rocket
scientist Hermann
Oberth publishes an
article speculating on
telescopes in orbit.
1930s
1940s
1950s
1946
1960s
1970s
1977
Astronomer Lyman
Spitzer writes a
report entitled
the “Astronomical
Advantages of an Extraterrestrial Observatory,”
in which he discusses
the feasibility of
building, launching, and
operating a satellite
observatory.
Congress approves the budget
for a space telescope. Lockheed
Missiles and Space Company
wins the contract to design and
build the telescope. PerkinElmer
is awarded the contract to
construct the optical telescope
assembly, which includes the
2.4-meter primary mirror, the
secondary mirror, and the three
fine guidance sensors.
HUBBLE
4
TIMELINE
1980s to 1990
Years of preparation culminate in launch …
1981
1981
The Space
Telescope
Science Institute
is established as
the telescope’s
science
operations
center on the
campus of the
Johns Hopkins
University in
Baltimore, Md.
1985
1983
1986
The telescope
is named the
Hubble Space
Telescope after
renowned
astronomer
Edwin P. Hubble.
Hubble’s launch is
delayed after the
Challenger accident.
The telescope is
kept in storage at
Lockheed.
1989
1990
April, 1990: Hubble is launched into Earth orbit by the crew
of the space shuttle Discovery.
After analyzing Hubble’s first pictures, astronomers discover
that the telescope has “blurred vision,” caused by a slight
distortion in the 2.4-meter primary mirror.
The telescope resolves a
ring of material around
Supernova 1987A.
HUBBLE
5
TIMELINE
Early 1990s
Ingenious repair for flawed optics, first discoveries …
1991
1992
Hubble
identifies
nearby
intergalactic
clouds.
1994
1993
The orbiting observatory
discovers protoplanetary
disks in the Orion Nebula.
The first servicing
mission takes
place. Astronauts
add a corrective
optics system to
fix the telescope’s
myopic vision.
1994
Hubble provides a detailed view
of the Comet Shoemaker-Levy
collision with Jupiter, offers definitive
confirmation of the existence of
supermassive black holes, reveals
details of Pluto’s surface, and
captures a close-up look at jets and
disks in young stellar objects.
COMET COLLISION WITH JUPITER
IN VISIBLE
LIGHT
IN ULTRAVIOLET
LIGHT
Hubble observation
of M87 provides
conclusive evidence
for the existence of
supermassive black
holes in the hubs
of galaxies.
HUBBLE
TIMELINE
6
Late 1990s
The universe yields much to Hubble’s sharpened eye …
1996
1995
1996
The Hubble
Deep Field
allows
astronomers to
see to the edge
of the universe.
Hubble
resolves
the host
galaxies of
quasars.
1999
1997
The second servicing mission
takes place. Astronauts install
two new science instruments.
Hubble identifies exotic
populations of stars in
globular clusters, sees
the visible afterglow
of a gamma-ray burst
in a distant galaxy,
and, from supernova
observations,
provides preliminary
evidence for an
accelerating universe.
1998
Hubble finds
evidence for
dark energy in
the universe.
1999
Hubble
observations
allow astronomers
to refine the
universe’s
expansion rate
to within 10
percent accuracy.
The third servicing
mission takes
place. Astronauts
replace the
telescope’s six
gyroscopes, which
help the orbiting
observatory point
at celestial objects.
HUBBLE
7
TIMELINE
Early 2000s
Discoveries abound, but a tragic setback occurs …
2001
2004
2002
Hubble finds a body in the Kuiper belt
that is larger than Pluto, triggering a
debate over Pluto’s planetary status.
PLUTO’S
ORBIT
SUN
KUIPER BELT
During Servicing Mission 3B
astronauts install a powerful new
instrument on Hubble, the Advanced
Camera for Surveys. They install a
cryocooler that extends the life of
Hubble’s infrared camera.
2003
Hubble finds
the oldest
known
exoplanet in
a globular
star cluster.
Space shuttle
Columbia
disintegrates
on atmospheric
reentry, killing
the sevenperson crew
and grounding
the shuttle
program.
2004
NASA Administrator,
Sean O’Keefe, cancels
planned Hubble servicing
mission out of concern
for shuttle safety.
2005
Hubble discovers
two moons
around Pluto.
NEW MOONS
Hubble makes the UltraDeep Field observation.
CHARON
PLUTO
NASA
Administrator
Michael Griffin
reinstates
Hubble Servicing
Mission 4.
HUBBLE
TIMELINE
8
2006 to early 2010
Hubble gets its final servicing mission and returns to duty …
2006
2006
The telescope
finds direct
observational
evidence for
dark matter.
2009
2007
Hubble data are used
to make a 3-D map of
dark matter.
2008
Hubble finds the first
organic molecules on an
extrasolar planet and
makes the first direct
image of an exoplanet.
2009: First images from WFC3
2009
During Servicing Mission 4 astronauts
install two new instruments that make
Hubble 100 times more powerful than
when it was launched.
Astronomers issue the
first images taken with
the newly installed
Wide Field Camera 3
(WFC3). The stunning
photos are of a gaseous
shroud around a dying
star, a sparkling stellar
jewel box, a clash
among galaxies, and a
turbulent birthplace of
stars (see left).
The
telescope
takes the
deepest
infrared
view
of the
universe.
2010
Hubble
photographs
never-beforeseen evidence
of a collision
between two
asteroids.
9
IMAGE
CAPTIONS
AND
CREDITS
Cover
The Hubble Space Telescope, drifting away from the space shuttle Atlantis after
Hubble’s final servicing visit by astronauts, Servicing Mission 4, in May, 2009.
[Credit: NASA]
Page 2
The Hubble Space Telescope, as seen from space shuttle Atlantis after successful
completion of Servicing Mission 4, May, 2009. [Credit: NASA]
Page 3
1946: Lyman Spitzer [Illustration: Kathy Cordes, STScI]
Page 4
1983: Edwin P. Hubble [Illustration: Kathy Cordes, STScI]
Early 1990’s: Launch of the Hubble Space Telescope aboard
space shuttle Discovery, April 24, 1990 [Credit: NASA]
Early 1990’s: A dramatic look at the remnants of one of the most spectacular
and unexpected astronomical events of this century, the great supernova of 1987.
Hubble provided an intriguing view of the object and its surrounding shell of
stellar material, whose characteristics had been previously suggested by ground
based observations and data from the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite.
[Credit: NASA, ESA, and STScI]
Page 5
1993: Larger Orion image: A region of recent star formation (300,000 years
ago) in the Great Nebula in Orion. Inset image of “proplyds:” A small portion
of the large image reveals five young stars. Four of the stars are surrounded by
gas and dust trapped in orbit about the stars, as they formed. These are possibly
protoplanetary disks, or “proplyds,” that might evolve further to agglomerate
planets. [Credit: C.R. O’Dell (Rice University); NASA]
Continued, next page …
10
IMAGE
Page 5,
(cont’d)
CAPTIONS
AND
CREDITS
(cont’d)
1993: Installation of COSTAR, the corrective optics device, during Hubble’s first
servicing mission. [Credit: NASA]
1994: Hubble observed comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9’s spectacular collision with
Jupiter. The images provided the only information ever obtained on the wind direction
and speed in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, and shed new light on the planet’s immense
magnetic field, the mysterious dark debris from the impacts, and the composition
of the doomed comet itself. [Credit: John Clarke (University of Michigan), Heidi
Hammel (MIT), and Harold Weaver and Melissa McGrath (STScI)]
1994: Hubble observed a spiral-shaped disk of hot gas in the core of active galaxy
M87. HST measurements showed the disk is rotating so rapidly it contains a massive
black hole at its hub. Earlier observations suggested the black hole was present,
but were not decisive. A brilliant jet of high-speed electrons that emits from the
nucleus (diagonal line across image) is believed to be produced by the black hole
“engine.” [Credit: Holland Ford (STScI/Johns Hopkins University); Richard Harms
(Applied Research Corp.); Zlatan Tsvetanov, Arthur Davidsen, and Gerard Kriss
(Johns Hopkins); Ralph Bohlin and George Hartig (STScI); Linda Dressel and Ajay K.
Kochhar (Applied Research Corp.); Bruce Margon (Univ. of Washington); and NASA]
Page 6
1995: A detail from the Hubble Deep Field-North (HUDF-N). WIth this image, Hubble
provided mankind’s deepest, most detailed, visible view of the universe. Representing
a narrow “keyhole” view stretching to the visible horizon of the universe, the Hubble
Deep Field image covers a speck of the sky only about the width of a dime 75 feet
away. Gazing into this small field, Hubble uncovered a bewildering assortment of at
least 1,500 galaxies at various stages of evolution.
[Credit: Robert Williams and the Hubble Deep Field Team (STScI) and NASA]
Continued, next page …
11
IMAGE
Page 6,
(cont’d)
CAPTIONS
AND
CREDITS
(cont’d)
1997: This stellar swarm, M80 (NGC 6093), is one of the densest of the 147
known globular star clusters in the Milky Way galaxy. Located about 28,000 lightyears from Earth, M80 contains hundreds of thousands of stars, all held together
by their mutual gravitational attraction. Globular clusters are particularly useful for
studying stellar evolution, since all of the stars in the cluster have the same age
(about 15 billion years), but cover a range of stellar masses. Every star visible in
this image is either more highly evolved than, or in a few rare cases more massive
than, our own Sun. [Credit: The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)]
1999: Aiming to precisely measure the expansion rate of the universe, a team
of scientists used Hubble to observe 18 galaxies out to a distance of 65 million
light-years. They discovered almost 800 Cepheid variable stars, a special class of
pulsating star used for accurate distance measurement. Shown is one of the galaxies
studied. Although Cepheids are rare, they provide a very reliable “standard candle”
for estimating intergalactic distances. The team determined that the universe is
approximately 12 billion years old.
[Credit: Jeffrey Newman (Univ. of California at Berkeley) and NASA]
1999: The Hubble Space Telescope, grappled and in the shuttle’s cargo bay,
awaiting attention from the astronauts of Servicing Mission 3A. [Credit: NASA]
Page 7
2002: A diagram of the location of the Kuiper Belt. [Credit: STScI Graphics Dept.]
2004: A detail from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). This image superseded
the 1995 Hubble Deep Field (HDF) images as the deepest portrait of the visible
universe ever achieved by humankind. The million-second-long exposure reveals
the first galaxies to emerge from the so-called “dark ages,” the time shortly after
the big bang when the first stars reheated the cold, dark universe.
[Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team]
Continued, next page …
12
IMAGE
Page 7,
CAPTIONS
AND
CREDITS
(cont’d)
2005: Using Hubble to view the ninth planet in our solar system, astronomers
(cont’d)
discovered Pluto may have not one, but three moons. Hubble’s images reveal
Pluto, its large moon Charon, and the planet’s two new candidate satellites.
Between May 15 and May 18, 2005, Charon, and the putative moons all appeared
to rotate counterclockwise around Pluto. If confirmed, the discovery of the two
new moons could offer insights into the nature and evolution of the Pluto system
and the early Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is a vast region of icy, rocky bodies
beyond Neptune’s orbit. [Credit: NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JHU/APL), A. Stern
(SwRI), and the HST Pluto Companion Search Team]
Page 8
2009: The first four images released after Servicing Mission 4 (the “Early
Release Observations”):
The Butterfly Nebula: This object is a dying star that was once about
five times the mass of the Sun. It has ejected its layer of gases and
is now unleashing a stream of ultraviolet radiation that is making the
ejected material glow, lighting up its delicate-looking butterfly shape.
[Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team]
Massive globular cluster, Omega Centauri: A panoramic view of
a colorful assortment of 100,000 stars residing in the crowded core of
a giant star cluster. The image reveals a small region inside the star
cluster, which boasts nearly 10 million stars. Globular clusters, ancient
swarms of stars united by gravity, are the homesteaders of our Milky
Way galaxy. The stars in Omega Centauri are between 10 billion and 12
billion years old. The cluster lies about 16,000 light-years from Earth.
[Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team]
Continued, next page …
13
IMAGE
Page 8,
(cont’d)
CAPTIONS
AND
CREDITS
(cont’d)
Stephan’s Quintet: A clash among members of a famous galaxy quintet
reveals an assortment of stars across a wide color range, from young,
blue stars to aging, red stars. Three of the galaxies have distorted
shapes, elongated spiral arms, and long, gaseous tidal tails containing
many star clusters, proof of their close encounters. These interactions
have sparked a frenzy of star birth in the central pair of galaxies.
[Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team]
Pillar in the Carina Nebula: This image shows the tip of a 3-light-yearlong pillar of gas and dust, bathed in the glow of light from hot, massive
stars located off the top edge of the image. Scorching radiation and fast
winds (streams of charged particles) from these stars are sculpting the
pillar and causing new stars to form within it. Streamers of gas and dust
can be seen flowing off the top of the structure. Nestled inside this dense
structure are fledgling stars. They cannot be seen in this image because
they are hidden by a wall of gas and dust.
[Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team]
2010:
Evidence of a suspected collision between two asteroids: A mystery object
was discovered on January 6, 2010, by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research
(LINEAR) sky survey. The object appeared so unusual in ground-based telescopic
images that Hubble was used to take a close-up look. The observations show a
bizarre X-pattern of filamentary structures near the point-like nucleus of the object
and trailing streamers of dust. This complex structure suggests the object is not
a comet, as was hypothesized, but instead the product of a head-on collision
between two asteroids traveling five times faster than a rifle bullet. Astronomers
have long thought that the asteroid belt is being ground down through collisions,
but such evidence of a smashup has never before been seen.
[Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA)]