Archive for the ‘Pillars of Creation’ tag
20 Years Young
Despite all the cool and meaningful innovations we’ve discussed on this blog, few come as close in terms of impact on a scientific field as the Hubble Space Telescope. And this weekend, you can help celebrate it’s birthday!
Officially launched on April 24, 1990 (can you believe that was 20 years ago!?), it has provided one of humanity’s best looks into deep space and has, among other things:
- Helped refine the field’s understanding of Hubble’s Law and the Hubble Constant
- Showed that the expansion of the universe was not decelerating, but accelerating, suggesting the existence of dark energy
- Helped to establish the existence of massive black holes at the center of galaxies and their relationships
- Provided sharp images of the impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter
- Collect data on extrasolar planets and protoplanetary discs
- Furthered the study of Wolf-Rayet Stars, suspected to be the precursors of Gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful energy bursts known in the universe
- The mindblowing look 13 billion years into the past known as the Hubble Deep Field
And, potentially, most important of all: the gorgeous pictures of deep space (from Space Telescope Science Institute’s HubbleSite website).
Happy 20th birthday, Hubble!
(Image credits – Hubble Site via Space Telescope Science Institute)