By The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has just celebrated its 20th anniversary since it was positioned in orbit on April 24, 1990 by the space shuttle Discovery. NASA, together with the Space Telescope Science Institute and the European Space Agency, celebrated the event with the release of a new image from the Carina Nebula, one of the largest known star-birth regions of the galaxy.
The “Mystic Mountain” of the Carina Nebula
During its two decades of being in operation, the telescope was maintained and upgraded by teams of astronauts from other shuttles, insuring optimal functionality and extending its capabilities beyond what was thought possible, and for much longer than its expected lifespan.
Hubble Space Telescope
The telescope was named after American astronomer Edwin Hubble and it’s currently one of the largest and well known astronomic research tools to date. Hubble was funded during the 1970s, proposed for launch in 1983, but delayed due to technical difficulties and budget issues, together with the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of 1986.
Hubble Space Telescope brought some of the most amazing images the world has ever seen, along with new scientific information that answered a vast number of questions and led to many more new ones. Among these discoveries, the telescope’s observations allowed the astronomers to calculate the age of the universe at about 13.7 billion years with a small approximation.
The Butterfly Nebula
Hubble’s highlighted discoveries include proving the existence of dark energy, the existence of black holes together with breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as an accurate determination for the expansion rate of the universe. The orbit of the telescope is outside the distortion of Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to take highly detailed images with minimal background light.
Four servicing missions were conducted during 1993-2002, the fifth and final one being completed in 2009. Hubble telescope is expected to function at least until 2014, the year in which the James Webb Space Telescope (the JWST) is due to be launched.
Illustration of the JWST – September 2009
The JWST will be only a partial successor of Hubble, due to differences in light wavelength sensitivity of the two. This infrared space observatory was originally called the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), renamed in 2002 after James E. Webb (1906-1992), NASA’s second administrator.
The primary mission of the JWST is divided into 4 main components: searching for light from the primordial stars and galaxies which succeeded the Big Bang, studying the formation and evolution of galaxies, understanding the formation of stars and planetary systems and the study of planetary systems and the origins of life. Near infra-red study enables these jobs to be done more effectively than using the visible spectrum.
Most of the details concerning the program and technical details of the James Webb Space Telescope are already documented and available online.
Comparison with Hubble primary mirror