Kosmiczny Teleskop Hubble'a

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is one of the most famous telescope. It is the first optical telescope orbiting the Earth. Being above the atmosphere means it can see the sky more clearly than a telescope on the ground, because the atmosphere blurs starlight before it reaches earth. Named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble, the Hubble Space Telescope can observe 24 hours a day. The telescope can take pictures of things so far away it would be nearly impossible to see them from anywhere else.

It actually observes less than 20% of the time. It was made by both NASA and the ESA working together. It is 600 km in space and was launched April 24 1990. It completes a full orbit of Earth every 97 minutes. That means it travels at 5 miles per second. If you were going this speed on Earth, you would be able to get from New York to San Francisco in 10 minutes.

The Hubble itself is the size of a large school bus, but still small enough to fit inside the cargo bay of a Space Shuttle. It was repaired in 1993 due to imperfections in the picture quality.

Launch

The telescope was launched in 1990 by a space shuttle. When it entered orbit, everything seemed fine. But there was a problem with the telescope that was not discovered until it started taking pictures.

Future

Hubble will soon be replaced by other better and more complex telescopes, like the NGST and the Terrestrial Planet Finder.

Source: wikipedia.org