The Hubble TelescopeBy Elizabeth JohnsonJanuary 20, 2010

FUN FACTS

Hubble telescope is a powerful orbiting telescope that gives great images from space.

It is about the size of a large tractor-trailer truck.

Hubble whirls around Earth at 5 miles per second.

Hubble finishes 1 orbit around the Earth every 97 minutes.

Hubble travels more than 150 million miles (241 million km) per year.

HISTORY

The telescope is named afterAmerican astronomer EdwinPowell Hubble, who made bigdonations to astronomy inthe 1920's.

The space shuttle Discovery launched the Hubble telescope into orbit in 1990.

More than 6,000 scientific articles have been published based on information taken by Hubble.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

1. Did Hubble find a new solar system?▪ Yes, Hubble has found other planets in other solar system

that has Sodium, Hydrogen, Carbon and Oxygen.

2. How is the Hubble telescope different from land telescopes?▪ Hubble can take pictures from the atmosphere with better

view. Land telescopes cannot see through earth’s thick and polluted atmosphere .

3. Does the Hubble telescope work everywhere?▪ No, it doesn’t work near the sun because the strong light

and heat would fry its sensitive instruments. So, it is always pointed away from the sun.

Important Discoveries

1. Hubble has helped astronomers calculate the age of the universe to be 13 – 14 billion years old.

2. Hubble has captured pictures that helped astronomers figure out what the early universe looked like.

3. Hubble has helped astronomers to sample other planets to see if they are habitable or not.

4. Hubble explained that the ‘black scars’ on Jupiter was from large chunks of a comet hitting Jupiter.

5. Hubble has helped NASA find black holes that are billion times heavier than the sun.

End

I hope you learned a lot about the Hubble Telescope.

WORKS CITED

Flight Center 1960–1990 by Andrew J. Dunar

http://hubblesite.org/ http://hubble.nasa.gov/ http://www.nasa.gov/

mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html

http://www.helium.com/items/1647346-the-top-10-hubble-telescope-discoveries

A Journey Through Time (ISBN – 0-670-860-86018-2)