20 November: Hubble Space Telescope

This date in 1899 saw the birth of Edwin Hubble, after whom the Hubble Space Telescope was named. 10 things you might not know about the Telescope:

1. Its vital statistics are: length 43.5 feet (13.2 m) (about as long as an American school bus); Weight (at launch: it has gained weight while it's been up there): About 24,000 pounds (10,800 kg), about the same as two full-grown African Elephants, and Diameter (at widest point): 14 feet (4.2 m). It orbits Earth at an altitude of 340 miles (295 nautical miles, or 547 km) and takes 95 minutes to complete an orbit. It travels at 17,000 mph (27,000 kph). It has travelled more than 4 billion miles (6 billion km). Hubble's mirror is so finely polished that if you scaled it to be the diameter of the Earth, you would not find a bump more than 6 inches (15 cm) tall.
2. The idea of a space telescope isn't new. Scientists were talking about it as long ago as the 1920s but it was in 1946 that an astrophysicist named Lyman Spitzer Jr. wrote a paper about how a telescope in space would provide clearer images because the atmosphere blurs them. He worked on satellites during the 60s and 70s, but kept lobbying for a bigger and better telescope in space. Finally, his work paid off and in 1977, U.S. Congress finally appropriated funding for the future Hubble telescope.
3. Its launch was delayed by the Challenger disaster in 1986. Since NASA grounded the Space Shuttles after the disaster, Hubble was left with no means of getting into space. Undeterred, the scientists working on it decided to spend the time making improvements. These, and the fact the telescope had to be stored in an extremely clean environment meant that by the time it finally launched in 1990 using the Space Shuttle Discovery, the project was seven years behind schedule and more than $1 billion over budget.
4. When the telescope began sending back images, they were still blurred. One of the Mirrors had been polished to the wrong specification. Even though the mistake amounted to less than 1/50 the width of a human Hair, it was enough to screw things up. In the months that followed, the telescope became something of a national joke, dubbed a “$1.5 Billion Blunder.” There wasn't a lot anyone could do about it until 1993 when a spacewalk could be scheduled in which astronauts would install more mirrors to correct the glitch, a bit like putting glasses on the telescope.
5. Since then it has been earning its keep by sending back about 150 gigabits of raw science data every week. It has sent back images of the far reaches of the universe. In 1995, Hubble’s operators allowed it to stare for 10 days at a portion of the sky which appeared to be completely empty. Some scientists thought the lengthy exposure would be a waste of time, but the resulting image, known as the “Hubble Deep Field,” revealed a plethora of never-before-seen galaxies, including some of the most distant star systems ever discovered.
6. All the photos Hubble sends back are in black and white. The scientists on the ground add colours using filters, and can add colours to make things in the ultraviolet or infrared ranges visible or to emphasise the presence of certain elements.
7. In theory, anyone can apply to use the telescope, amateur astronomers included. That said, there is a very high demand for time with the telescope, so applications must have scientific merit in order to stand a chance. Only about a fifth of the applications sent to The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland are successful.
8. Hubble can distinguish astronomical objects with an accuracy which has been compared with being able to see two fireflies in Tokyo that are less than 10 feet (3 m) apart from Washington DC.
9. The telescope was expected to last 15 years. Thanks to maintenance missions it is still there, although since there are no space shuttles any more, it can't be maintained any more. It is expected to last until the late 2020s. There are already plans to launch another telescope, this one called the James Webb Space Telescope. At time of writing this was going to be launched in late 2021. It's not a replacement for Hubble exactly though, as James Webb can do slightly different things and the two will operate in tandem for a few years.
10. As well as helping us find out about deep space (Astronomers have published more than 18,000 scientific papers using its data, making it one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built) the technology has had some unexpected benefits here on Earth as well. For example, the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, which Hubble used to search for supermassive Black Holes, has been adapted by the medical profession to help distinguish benign and malignant tumours in breast tissue.

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