What Has The Hubble Space Telescope Discovered?

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was launched into space in 1990.

Since then, it has captured images of galaxies billions of light-years away. What did HST discover?

The Hubble Space Telescope is a joint project between NASA and the European Space Agency.

Its main mission is to study distant objects using its powerful telescope.

It has taken over 25 years to capture these amazing images.

In addition to capturing stunning pictures, the Hubble also helped scientists discover new planets outside our solar system.

If you want to find out more about what the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered, then you’re in the right place!

Keep on reading to find out more.

Everything You Should Know About The Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into Earth orbit on April 25th, 1990.

It is a large orbiting observatory that can take pictures of stars, galaxies, and other objects in deep space.

It is also capable of taking images of planets and moons around nearby stars.

The Hubble telescope is a space observatory launched by NASA in 1990. It was designed to study the universe and other celestial objects.

It is also used to observe planets around distant stars. It has been orbiting Earth since 1993.

It has captured many stunning pictures of the universe.

It is capable of seeing the farthest things in the universe. It has a diameter of 2.4 meters (8 feet). It weighs 6.5 tons.

It is made up of 3 parts – an optical assembly, a solar array, and a thermal shield.

The telescope uses a primary mirror with a diameter of 4.2 meters (14 feet) and a secondary mirror with a diameter of 1.1 meters (3.6 feet).

The telescope is operated by a team of scientists and engineers. It is named after Edwin Hubble who discovered the expanding universe.

There are many satellites orbiting around Earth.

Some of them are used by NASA to study weather patterns, while others are used to collect data on our planet.

What Has The Hubble Space Telescope Found?

Hubble’s success is in no large part due to its position above the atmosphere.

This style of astronomy is impossible from the ground as access to UV light is blocked by gasses in the air.

But the Hubble Space Telescope makes it possible to see these things that normal astronomy cannot.

Telescopes like Hubble act like a time machine, allowing us to see how things looked in the past.

Light takes time to travel the distance from an object, so when we look at distant galaxies, we’re seeing them as they were many millions or billions of years ago.

Our nearest neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, is seen as it was 2.5 million years in the past.

Pluto’s moon Nix and Pluto’s moon Hydra helped scientists figure out how old the universe is.

Pluto’s moons helped scientists figure out how fast the universe is expanding.

Pluto’s discovery of black holes helped scientists figure out what galaxies are anchored by.

The Rate That The Universe Is Expanding At

In an accelerating universe, the light from distant Type Ia supernovae should appear dimmer than they do in a decelerating model.

However, the opposite is true. These observations imply that the universe is actually expanding faster than previously thought.

This result is consistent with the existence of dark energy.

Dark energy was discovered by using a space telescope to find the most distant type 1a supernova ever found.

This information showed that the universe had been slowing down for billions of years before accelerating again.

Perlmutter, Riess, and Schmidt share the 2011 Nobel prize in Physics for this discovery.

Galaxies And Stars Aplenty As Grains Of Sand On The Beach

The HST shows a huge number of galaxies. Most of them are very far away. Some of them are very close together.

Galaxies are formed when stars collide and explode.

Astronomers count more than 1500 galaxies in an area of space the size of a grain held at arm’s length.

The original Hubble Deep field was followed by other, deeper views, revealing galaxies forming less than 500 million years after the big bang.

Discovering Supermassive Black Holes

Black holes are dense objects in space that have very strong gravitational fields.

Astronomers believe that there are many more black holes than stars in our universe.

A star is an object that gives off energy as it burns fuel. A black hole is an object that sucks up everything nearby.

Scientists think that when a star dies, it collapses under its own weight and creates a black hole.

Supermassive black holes are found in galaxies, and scientists believe that these black holes are formed by the collapse of large stars.

Back holes are not directly observable, but astronomers know that any falling gas would be accelerated to extremely high speeds, releasing high-energy radiation that cold be seen.

However, observing such emissions requires instruments that must peer through Earth’s atmosphere.

This makes it very difficult to observe back holes. This image shows the central region of the galaxy M87.

The bright blue spots are areas of star formation. The dark red spot is a supermassive black hole.

The yellowish glow is the hot gas surrounding the black hole.

The green dots show the locations of five telescopes used by the Hubble team to make this picture.

A black hole with a mass greater than three billion solar masses is the only possible explanation for this phenomenon.

Supermassive black holes are found in many galaxies. They are thought to be necessary for galaxy formation.

Planets, Planets, And Lots More Planets

A planet three times the size of Jupiter orbits a star named Fomalhaut. This planet was discovered by NASA in 2008.

Hubble was launched into orbit around the earth in 1990. It was built by American scientists and engineers.

It was named after Edwin P. Hubble who discovered galaxies far away.

Hubble has been used for space exploration as well as to observe the universe.

It has also been used to study the atmosphere of Jupiter and Saturn.

The Hubble Space Telescope has made great strides in astronomy by finding new planets and characterizing them.

In fact, Hubble has helped astronomers discover more than 1,000 exoplanets.

Gamma-Ray Bursts

Gamma-Ray Bursts are extremely powerful explosions that cut loose more energy in seconds than our Sun releases over its entire 10 billion year lifetime.

These bursts originate from massive stars collapsing into black holes.

Galaxies that are rich in massive stars that rapidly collapse to form black holes tend to be active star-forming galaxies.

Low-metallicity galaxies are more likely to retain mass and form black holes when massive stars collapse.

Hubble Still Goes On (And So Does Its Discoveries)

Hubble was launched in 1990. It is still going strong after all this time. It has been upgraded many times since then.

It keeps discovering things, and it will keep on discovering things until this massive Space Telescope ceases to operate.

So, who knows what the HST might discover in the future?

Summary

As you can see, the Hubble Space Telescope has identified lots of different things since it was sent up into space.

In just a short time, the Hubble Space Telescope has enabled us to find out more about the universe than we ever could have imagined.

So, as long as the HST continues to operate, it will continue to make remarkable discoveries about the universe that we live in.