Introduction of the Hubble Telescope - Research Paper Example

? Hubble Telescope Submitted to, Submitted By, of the Submitted on, [December 1st, INTRODUCTION The space and everything it holds are unimaginable boundaries. For long man has been in pursuance of finding out what the space beyond the Earth’s skies is actually composed of. Time and again man invented various instruments that assisted in the finding out of what resided in the skies that were apparently unseen to man. Among these instruments one of the most revealing instrument proved to be the invention of the telescope. Its subsequent placement into the atmosphere beyond the Earth’s visible skies opened new horizons of information regarding the universe. The Hubble telescope was the first space anchored telescope by man. Hubble has proven to be the key to the casket of knowledge pertaining to the skies of the space. It has helped in answering the most fascinating and intriguing queries of the astronomers of the planet Earth. The Hubble has had the privilege of researching out and about almost everything in the Universe known so far, from black holes to other solar systems in which planets revolve around stars similar to our own milky way. Astronomy was given a new meaning ever since Hubble endeavored upon its cruise as a result of which mankind has been steered on a new mission. The present study initiates from an introduction of what the universe is. It proceeds further with the reason behind the development of the Hubble Telescope and ventures into its twenty one year journey so far. THE UNIVERSE The Universe is everything around us. It has unimaginable boundaries that can neither be seen with naked human eye nor can be imagined. Present studies state that the Universe is ever expanding. Known to be made up of dust particles, numerous metals, gases, stars, clouds, galaxies and life forms, the universe has been the source of inquisitiveness for man ever since ancient times. The planet Earth on which human beings reside is one planet in one of the innumerable solar systems that spread out in the universe. Earth’s sky is filled with small specks of distant celestial objects whether they be stars or anything else. The fact that these specks of light are not just light bulbs in the sky but actually are celestial objects became known to man only after inventions and discoveries in the field of information and communications technology. Prior to them man could think of the Universe only till where his imagination took him. HISTORY The advent of information and communications technology dates back to the days of Galileo. Galileo’s invention of the telescope in the year 1609 was the major breakthrough in looking up distant things. It was the phenomenon of telescope only that bought life into the mere light specks that the Earth’s night sky displayed. There was unanimity in the desire of all the scientists: to see further more and more into the skies. Galileo’s Earth based telescope was able to distinguish the surface of the moon in the 17th century. By the eighteenth century the telescope had become a major means by which celestial objects were being viewed. A number of scientists had decided that if a telescope could somehow be put up in the skies then it would definitely be able to see further more ahead than a mere Earth based telescope. This was because the Earth’s atmosphere was a major hindrance in the reaching of light to the Earth based telescopes since the atmosphere was all made up of pockets of gases that trapped light. The successful execution of the thought to deploy a sky based telescope could take place in the year 1990 when the first space bound telescope was finally launched by the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Figure 1: Earth's View from Hubble Space Telescope. Source: Nasa.gov. THE HUBBLE TELESCOPE The world renowned telescope was named after a very famous scientist of the twentieth century. Edwin Hubble, in the year 1924, had used a powerful Earth based telescope to discover that there were billions of galaxies apart from our Milky Way and each of them were moving apart from each other. It was on the basis of this amazing discovery that the first space telescope was named after him. Courage was taken by scientists from the launch of the Satellite by the Soviets in the year1957. The Hubble Telescope was finally sent into space via space shuttle Discovery on the 24th of April 1990. It is since then that it has been continuously in operation. It continuously orbits around the planet Earth. The telescope does not have an eye piece like the Earth base telescope. Rather the information captured by it is viewed directly in the computers connected to it back on Earth. Since its deployment there have been five serving missions that go and service the telescope. Hubble telescope’s milestone twenty first anniversary in orbit was on the 24th of April 2011. WORKING OF HUBBLE The Hubble telescope completes one complete circle round the Earth after every 97 minutes. It does so by revolving at the speed of about five miles per second or 8 km per second. The telescope captures light from the celestial objects within the space and transfers it to a number of instruments allocated within it. The name given to the type of telescope that Hubble is, is called Cassegrain reflector. The mechanism that goes into the telescope is this that light comes into it and touches the main mirror. This mirror is also known as the primary mirror. After it, it transfers to the secondary mirror. The reflected light from this mirror is focused such that it passes through a hole within the center of the primary mirror and eventually passes on to some other instruments within the telescope. Generally speaking, the more light a mirror can collect in it, the better results it gives. Figure 2: Working of the Hubble Telescope. Source: http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hubble_essentials/image.php?image=light-path Thus, if the mirror of a telescope is large, it functions better. The size of the main mirror fitted into the telescope is: 94.5 inches. This may seem to be a much smaller size than that of the mirrors generally present on the Earth. The reason for its smaller size is that because of it being positioned beyond the Earth’s atmosphere the vision that it has to look up is much clearer than that which is visible from Earth. Each of the mirrors installed in the device are made with glass. Coatings of aluminum and magnesium fluoride give the mirrors the ability to reflect infrared, ultraviolet and reflect light. Once the light has reached the instruments, each one of it deals with it distinctly since they are designed to capture different forms of light. The names of the instruments, as mentioned byHubblesite.org (n.d.) are: “Hubble's current instruments are the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), and Fine Guidance Sensors (FGS).” (Hubblesite.org, n.d.) The instruments within the telescope are serviced and replaced with better technologically advanced substitutes every time a servicing mission goes to keep up the telescope’s maintenance. The very first servicing mission went up to the Hubble in the year 1993. It rectified a little curvature error that the telescope’s initial lens had. It was because if this error that was making difficult to focus faint objects. The way The Hubble Telescope transmits the data captured back to Earth can be stated well if quoted from the words of Lars Lindberg Christensen and R. A. E. Fosbury in their book “Hubble: 15 years of discovery”, “Hubble sends its data first to a satellite in the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System which then downlinks the signal to White Sands, New Mexico, USA. The observations are sent from NASA in the United States to Europe where they are stored in a huge data archive in Munich, Germany.” (Christensen, Fosbury, 2006) HUBBLE’S ACHIEVEMENTS Pioneer in capturing information about the Universe, Hubble has a number of achievements to its credit. These include the finding out of numerous galaxies, evaluating the age of the Universe, observing ancient galaxies etc. The rate at which pulsating stars expanded was what gave scientists the idea of calculating the age of the Universe. Similarly observing galaxies enabled man to understand the initiation and development of the Universe in the past days. Besides these, Hubble gave insight into the concept of dark energy, the atmosphere of planets other than those in our solar system, and eventually perhaps in the presence of any extraterrestrial forms. WHAT NEXT? After all these years of constant relentless service Hubble is nearing its prescribed age. It is most likely that by the year 2013 the Hubble Telescope would be replaced by its better alternative the James Webb Space Telescope. This new replacement is expected to function at a faster speed than Hubble and is also expected to be stationed at a point much farther away in space than its predecessor. National Geographic’s official website mentions The proposed telescope in the following words: “The new instrument will orbit much farther from Earth (940,000 miles/1.5 million kilometers)—the better to peer farther through the dust of space into the earliest formations of stars, solar systems, and galaxies.” (National Geographic, 2011) REFERENCES Christensen L. L., Fosbury B. 2006. Hubble. 15 Years of Discovery. Springer Science and Business Media Inc. NY. USA. Chaisson, E. 1998. The Hubble Wars.Harper Collins Publisher Inc. U.S.A. Hubblesite.org. (n.d.)What is the Hubble Space Telescope? Hubblesite. Retrieved from http://hubblesite.org/reference_desk/faq/answer.php?id=76&cat=topten Hubblesite.org (2011) How the Telescope works.[Web Picture] Hubble Essentials. Retrieved from http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hubble_essentials/ Nasa. (2011)Earth's View from Hubble Space Telescope. [Web Picture] Nasa.gov. Retrieved from nasa.gov National Geographic (2011) Hubble Space Telescope. National Geographic. Retrieved from http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/space-exploration/hubble/ Peterson C. C., Brandt C J. 1998. Hubble Vision: Further Adventures With the Hubble Space Telescope. Cambridge University Press 1998. Roza G. 2005. The Hubble Space Telescope.Rosen Publishing Group Inc. New York. Voit M. 2000. Hubble Space Telescope. Abrams N. H. Zobel, B. (Jan 6 2010) The Hubble Telescope. Bellweather Media Inc. Read More