The Hubble Space Telescope

Photo Credit: NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope was lunched by the U.S on April 24, 1990 and is named after Astronomer Edwin P. Hubble. It is a low Earth Orbiting Satellite, located about 375 miles (600km) above the surface of the Earth. Hubble completes an orbit around the Earth every 97 minutes. 

Coolest Facts...

Height and Weight

• Hubble is 13.3 meters (43.5 feet) long -- the length of a large school bus.
• Hubble weighs 24,500 pounds -- as much as two full-grown elephants.

What Does it do? 

• Hubble does not travel to stars, planets or galaxies. It takes pictures of them as it whirls around Earth at 17,500 mph.

How many pictures did it take so far? 

• NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has made more than 930,000 observations and snapped more than 570,000 images of 30,000 celestial objects since its mission began in 1990.

 How many times did it circle the Earth? 

• Hubble has circled Earth more than 110,000 times.
• With those trips, Hubble has racked up plenty of frequent-flier miles, about 2.8 billion, which is Neptune's average distance from the sun.

 How much information did it generate so far? 

• More than two decades of Hubble observations have produced more than 45 terabytes of data, enough information to fill nearly 5,800 DVDs.
• Every day the Hubble Space Telescope archives 3 to 5 GB of data and delivers between 10-15 GB to astronomers all over world
• Each month the orbiting observatory generates more than 360 gigabytes of data, which could fill the storage space of an average home computer.

Does it help astronomers? 

• Yes. It does! About 4,000 astronomers from all over the world have used the telescope to probe the universe.
• Astronomers using Hubble data have published more than 8,700 scientific papers, making it one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built. In 2009 scientists published 648 journal articles on Hubble telescope data.

Hubble’s Mirror:

• Hubble's primary mirror is 2.4 meters (7 feet, 10.5 inches) across -- taller than retired NBA player Gheorghe Muresan, who is 2.3 meters (7 feet, 7 inches) tall. Muresan is the tallest man ever to play in the NBA.

             
Source: 
 17 April 2014. <http://www.nasa.gov/facts/Universe/universe_facts_archives.html>.
17 April 2014. <http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/story/index.html#.U0-IpvldV8E>.