Hubble Space Telescope

     

     Since our poetry class was discussing about  Sherman Alexie's poem "Defending Walt Whitman,"which was written in the 1990s, I followed my passion in astronomy and search on Google for something interesting to write my blogpost about that happened around that time period. Then, I found out that there was a space telescope called the "Hubble Space Telescope" sent into orbit in 1990. It is still operating today, and it has provided astronomers with many new and interesting facts about the universe.

     The Hubble Space Telescope was named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble, and it helped Adam Riess, a professor at John Hopskin University, and his team to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011.  It serves as the "astronomer's eyes to the universe." The telescope's position in the outer space allows it to take pictures of the galaxies years away from Earth. It has expanded the knowledge of the universe for astronomers, particularly the discovery of "dark energy." The Science Magazine called this "The Breakthrough Discovery of the Year" in 1998. 

     NASA said that the telescope spotted a supernovae burst of explosion 10 billions light-years away from Earth. It supported the concept of "dark energy" prevading the cosmos. Astronomers believed that this energy could shove galaxies away at an increasing speed; this idea was firstly introduced by Edwin Hubble and later discarded by Albert Einstein. Riess explained that this supernovae showed how the expansion of the universe changing over time.  

Some trivia about Hubble Telescope: 

• Hubbles twirls around the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour and takes pictures of the stars and galaxies. 
• In 20 years of working, it has made more than 930,000 observations, and snapped 570,000 images of 30,000 objects. 
• The data that it collects after 20 years accumulates up to 45 terabytes, which could filled nearly 5,800 DVD movies. 

An image of 30 Dolarus, home of the most massive stars, taken by Hubble Telescope.