The development of the Hubble Space Telescope marked the beginning of a new age of the human journey to the beginning of space and time
Astronomy News – The history of human science and astronomy is ripe with stories of defining moments that opened new avenues of thought and belief in a universe humans had never experienced or dreamed of, before. The moment humans first looked upward into a sky they could neither understand nor comprehended, the history of stargazing and astronomy was written. The story of the first images humanity glimpsed through the instruments of the Hubble Space Telescope is just one defining moment that has opened roads of thought and belief astronomers and scientists had never dreamed before. The 20 years since these first Hubble images has defined a period of human history that will be remembered for astronomy milestones that opened never-before-seen parts of the universe to humans and showed us glimpses of things we never dared imagine. The recent refurbishing of the Hubble Space Telescope has allowed astronomers to look even further back in space and time to the beginning of the universe and along with the James Webb Space Telescope will soon take humanity on a journey to the beginning of space and time.
The launch of the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit around planet Earth on April 24, 1990, marked a moment in human history as pivotal as the moment Galileo first looked through his telescope at the world he had never seen before. During about 110,000 orbits the Hubble Space Telescope has helped about 4,000 astronomers from around the world takes over 570,000 images of about 30,000 celestial objects that have helped astronomers ask questions that will help define the future of human space studies for centuries to come. The information and data collected by the studies astronomers have conducted of the universe with the Hubble Space Telescope has also provided content for about 8,700 scientific papers and 648 journal articles, opened windows giving humans a view of parts of the universe we have dreamed of seeing, and the latest astronomy and science books.
The Hubble Space Telescope has allowed the human journey to the beginning of space and time to travel closer and closer to the Big Bang
To date, the Hubble Space Telescope has shown us a view of the most distance celestial object we have viewed so far, about 13.2 billion years in the past. This view is about 150 million years further back in space and time than any previous view humans have seen of the universe. At this time in the lifespan of the universe, astronomers believe the universe was only about 500 million years old and the echoes of the big bang could still be heard.
The Hubble Space Telescope has also helped astronomers determine a number of different things about the universe, like the presence of supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies, planet-forming processes at work in the universe, and the presence of the first organic molecule scientists have found outside our solar system.
The James Webb Space Telescope will take the human journey to the beginning of space and time back to the time when it all began
The next twenty years of human space discovery will see the James Webb Space Telescope take up the torch-of-discovery the Hubble Space Telescope has carried for the past two decades. The grand old boy will still take astronomers on journeys of discovery for years to come, and show us views of reality that will open our eyes to the wonder of it all. The James Webb Space Telescope has yet to be launched into space and until this happens the Hubble Space Telescope is still the baddest telescope in the solar system.
Check out the newest astronomy website at http://astronomytonight.yolasite.com/.
Read about NASA’s Messenger spacecraft and its mission to Mercury
Have you heard about the recent meteorite that exploded near the Ural Mountains
