


Hubble gave us one of the most memorable and important images in human history: the Hubble Deep Field image which shows thousands of galaxies in just a tiny speck of sky. It also, of course, continues to dazzle us with stunning pictures of stars, galaxies and planets. Scientists have used Hubble to observe the most distant stars and galaxies as well as the planets in our solar system.ĭata and from the orbiting telescope are the backbone of more than 15,000 technical papers. The telescope has had a major impact on every area of astronomy, from the solar system to objects at the edge of the universe. Its domain extends from the ultraviolet, through the visible, and to the near-infrared. Hubble can see far more than what we can with our eyes. Far above the distortion of Earth's atmosphere, clouds and light pollution, Hubble has an unobstructed view of the universe. The first major optical telescope to be placed in space, Hubble operates from the ultimate mountaintop. The Hubble Space Telescope's launch and deployment in April 1990 marked the most significant advancement in astronomy since Galileo's telescope. May 20, 1990: First image, Star cluster NGC 3532ĭecember 1993: Servicing Mission 1 (STS-61)įebruary 1997:Servicing Mission 2 (STS-82)ĭecember 1999: Servicing Mission 3A (STS-103)įebruary 2002: Servicing Mission 3B (STS-109)Ī 3D model of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Credit: NASA Visualization Technology Applications and Development (VTAD)
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“We want to know: Where did we come from? What happened after the big bang to make galaxies and stars and black holes? We have predictions and guesses, but astronomy is an observational science, full of surprises.NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is the first astronomical observatory placed into orbit around Earth with the ability to record images in wavelengths of light spanning from ultraviolet to near-infrared. Scientific observations, proposed years ago, are being made as we speak,” Mather said. “What comes next? All the tools are working, better than we hoped and promised. The first images were anticipated by Mather for 25 years. “We’ll look at our own solar system with new infrared eyes, looking for chemical traces of our history, and tracking down mysteries like Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, composition of the ocean under the ice of Europa, and the atmosphere of Saturn’s giant moon Titan,” said John Mather, Webb senior project scientist at NASA Goddard, in a statement. Interactive: The search for life on Mars and ocean worlds in our solar system This is especially exciting because it means that Webb may also be able to observe plumes of material releasing into space from ocean worlds in our solar system, like Europa or Saturn’s moon Enceladus. These robots could search for life in our solar system's ocean worlds Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech JPL-Caltech/NASA

In the Sensing With Independent Micro-Swimmers (SWIM) concept, illustrated here, dozens of small robots would descend through the icy shell of a distant moon via a cryobot to the ocean below.
