Hubble Space Telescope

1. Hubble Space Telescope Made by Alexandra Birladeanu and Gina Ioana Ursu. National College Romania

2. Introduction Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a telescope in orbit around the Earth, named after astronomer Edwin Hubble. Its position outside the Earth's atmosphere, giving it a significant advantage over telescopes on Earth. Since its launch in 1990 became one of the most important instruments in the history of astronomy. National College Romania

3. General Information National College Romania

4. The data pipeline National College Romania

5. Why a space telescope? The atmosphere is the biggest problem that space telescopes have faced since the very earliest days of their invention. Shifting air pockets in Earth's atmosphere distort the view of telescopes on the ground. This "atmospheric distortion" is the reason that the stars seem to twinkle when you look up at the sky. National College Romania

6. Why a space telescope? The atmosphere also partially blocks or absorbs certain wavelengths of radiation, like ultraviolet, gamma- and X-rays, before they can reach Earth. Scientists can best examine an object like a star by studying it in all the types of wavelengths . National College Romania

7. We have a problem Fortunately, scientists and engineers had a solution. A series of small mirrors could be used to intercept the light reflecting off the mirror, correct for the flaw, and bounce the light to the telescope's science instruments. National College Romania

8. National College Romania

9. How it works Every 97 minutes, Hubble completes a spin around Earth, moving at the speed of about five miles per second (8 km per second). As it travels, Hubble's mirror captures light and directs it into its several science instruments. National College Romania

10. How it works Hubble is a type of telescope known as a Cassegrain reflector. Light hits the telescope's main mirror, or primary mirror. It bounces off the primary mirror and encounters a secondary mirror. The secondary mirror focuses the light through a hole in the center of the primary mirror that leads to the telescope's science instruments.Once the mirror captures the light, Hubble's science instruments work together or individually to provide the observation. Each instrument is designed to examine the universe in a different way. National College Romania

11. How it works The Hubble Space Telescope's six science instruments — its cameras, spectrographs, and fine guidance sensors — work either together or individually to bring us stunning images from the farthest reaches of space. Each instrument was designed to observe the universe in a unique way. National College Romania

12. News Starburst: A brilliant burst of star formation is revealed in this image combining observations from NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes. The collision of two spiral galaxies has triggered this luminous starburst, the brightest ever seen away from the centers, or nuclei, of merging galaxies. National College Romania

13. Cosmic Lens Used to Probe Dark Energy Astronomers have devised a new method for measuring perhaps the greatest puzzle of our universe -- dark energy. This mysterious force, discovered in 1998, is pushing our universe apart at ever-increasing speeds. Scientists aren't clear about what dark energy is, but they do know that it makes up a large chunk of our universe -- about 72 percent. National College Romania

14. WFC3 Wide Field Camera 3 is expected to become Hubble's new main instrument.  It is 35 times better than the infrared camera in the ACS, and 15-20 times better than the NICMOS. It has higher resolution and a larger field of view than the instrument it replaced, Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. WFC3 has two "channels" which detects and processes different wavelengths. National College Romania

15. COS The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph doesn't produce the kind of images people associate with Hubble. Spectrographs are instruments that break light into colors and measure the intensity of each color, revealing information about the object emitting the light. The information they produce is typically plotted, creating zigzagging lines that scientists examine for clues about an object's temperature, density, velocity and more. National College Romania

16. NICMOS The Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) can see objects in deepest space — objects whose light takes billions of years to reach us here on Earth. As a camera for recording visible light must be dark inside to avoid exposure to unwanted light, a camera for recording infrared light must be cold inside to avoid exposure to unwanted light in the form of heat.This is why the sensitive infrared detectors in NICMOS must operate at very cold temperatures —77 degrees Kelvin. National College Romania

17. Cool views from NICMOS Far away galaxy The egg nebula National College Romania

18. WFPC2 The unique WFPC2 design resulted in the stair-step appearance of many of its images. The "heart'' of WFPC2 consisted of four cameras: one high-resolution"planetary" camera and three "wide-field" cameras. Although the planetary camera could see only a small region of the sky, it packed a punch — compacting the same number of pixels into a smaller area resulted in finer-detailed images. National College Romania

19. WFPC2 The Large Magellanic Cloud The eagle nebula National College Romania