What new discoveries have been made by the Hubble Space Telescope?
Since the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed by the U.S. space shuttle Disovery on April 25, 1990, it has sent more than 260,000 photographs from space back to Earth. The telescope has given scientists information about the age and size of the universe and has proven the existence of black holes. It has also provided pictures of the surface of the planet Pluto, captured images of the birth of stars, and shown what happens when a comet strikes a planet. The Hubble Space Telescope was named for Edwin Powell Hubble (1889–1953), an American astronomer known for his studies of galaxies. Designed to see deeper into space than any telescope on land, it was equipped with mirrors that would be free of interference from the Earth’s atmosphere. About a month after the Hubble was launched, however, it encountered problems. On June 27,…
