Literature

Hundreds of miles above the surface of our planet, the Hubble Space Telescope orbits the Earth every 97 minutes. This 11-ton, 43-foot-long instrument has made more than 185,000 trips around our planet, covering approximately 5 billion miles.

As it flies through space at 17,000 mph, it is taking some of the most captivating photos ever seen.

The gases of Earth’s atmosphere distort and block wavelengths of light from space, so Hubble’s position 340 miles above the ground enables its 8-foot-diameter mirror and its four cameras to capture more and purer light. The data is transmitted to a relay satellite, then a ground station in New Mexico, and then it is sent to Maryland, where it is decoded.

The results are spectacular.

We see breathtaking images of purple- and blue-hued nebulae and sparkling, diamond-like fields of galaxies where we thought there was nothing but empty space. We see awe-inspiring, brilliant pictures of stars and galaxies and clusters in whites, golds, oranges, blues and greens. We see infrared, luminous, ultraluminous, radiant views of objects so far away, so gigantic, so dazzling our minds can’t even process them.

From Hubble, we have seen supernovas, galaxies in their early stages, and massive stars collapsing. We have seen comets striking planets, and births of stars; we can recognize black holes. These images give us spectacular views of our expanding universe.