On this day in 1990, NASA launched the Hubble Telescope into orbit around the Earth aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.
Since Hubble’s launch into space, millions of people around the world have seen an astounding set of photographs from those interested in space sciences and the outside world surrounding the planet Earth.
The telescope has collected more than 45 gigabytes of data, which has given scientists new insights into the universe, from nearby objects like the moon to galaxies billions of light-years distant. The telescope captured stunning images of explosions and nebulae.
When the scientist Galileo first pointed his telescope to the sky in 1610, he struggled to see the brilliant rings of Saturn that are visible in today’s modest telescopes. A lot of light is still obstructed in front of ground observers.
As a result, the necessity for enormous telescopes to be placed on high mountains began to emerge, in order to allow for a better atmosphere and crisper photographs.
In 1923, a German scientist named “Hermann Oberth” proposed moving the telescope into space in orbit around the Earth to help overcome distortions caused by the atmosphere, and when rockets became more common, that idea became possible, and in 1969, approval was given to launch a large space telescope, but it took longer than preparing for the moon mission.
The European Space Agency and NASA began working on a proposal to build the Hubble telescope in 1975, and the US Congress approved money for the project in 1977. The emergence of reusable space shuttles provided a new mechanism for getting such a telescope into space.
The Hubble Space Telescope is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble, who discovered that the universe stretches beyond the Milky Way’s borders.
The telescope mirror was initially malfunctioning, and the views were hazy and nearly worthless due to aberration caused by a manufacturing flaw.
On December 2, 1993, NASA agreed to send a mission to rectify this major issue, and two new cameras were put on the telescope during the repair operation.
The first of these amazing new Hubble photographs arrived on Earth in December 1993, and they were simply magnificent.