Hubble Space Telescope

Launched in 1990, Hubble changed our view of the universe.

The high-gain antenna of the Hubble Space Telescope unfolded on its boom against black space.
Hubble Space Telescope (HST) high gain antenna (HGA) deployment during STS-31. Credit: NASA. Source, NASA media guidelines.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched on 24 April 1990 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery and released into orbit the next day. It is a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency.

A rocky start

The first images were blurry: the 2.4 m main mirror had been ground to a slightly wrong shape. In December 1993 astronauts installed corrective optics, and Hubble's images became sharp. In total, five Space Shuttle missions serviced and upgraded the telescope.

Discoveries

  • Helped to measure the age of the universe and its expansion rate.
  • Contributed to the discovery that the expansion is accelerating.
  • Showed that supermassive black holes are common in the centres of galaxies.
  • Took the deep field images that revealed thousands of distant galaxies, see Universe.

The image above shows the deployment of one of Hubble's antennas during the launch mission in April 1990.