The Solar System: The Hubble Telescope

The telescope would become the indispensable instrument for investigations of the cosmos. Bigger and better telescopes were built all over the world. Planets, stars, and nebulae which could not be seen by the naked eye were now being routinely noted and logged. Such is the case with the fantastic discoveries for which the Hubble Space Telescope has been responsible during the twentieth century. Had it not been for the creation of such a monumental piece of scientific machinery, the worlds not have

During our first lab in Astronomy, we got to develop and perform a hands-on experiment of the overall scale of our Solar System. We got to physically interact by demonstrating and constructing a model of our Solar System by using a simple tool such as toilet paper. Who knew? We used the toilet paper shown in the pictures as a visual representation to illustrate the overall scale of the Solar System, to show the distance between each individual planet, and to represent the distances of each planet from the Sun. We physically counted out each piece or sheet of toilet paper to reach the destination of which the next or neighboring planet was from its neighboring planet. We started with the Sun, then Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, until we finally reached our final planet, Neptune. We drew dots to represent each planet. In our lab activity, we created and demonstrated a relative scale model to show how the planets are aligned and the distance between each of them. We created this model, so that we could better understand the overall sizes of each planet and the distances of each of the planets from the Sun.

It is easy to flip to the index of an astronomy textbook to discover that, say, the Sun lies 150 million kilometers away from Earth.  It is far more difficult (if not impossible), however, to picture this distance in the human mind.  In this exercise, we will learn to access the often unpalatable distances encountered in astronomy by simply scaling the huge distances to more recognizable, pedestrian numbers.  So long as every distance within the system of interest is scaled by the same factor, we retain the meaningful information about relative distances between objects.

It is easy to flip to the index of an astronomy textbook to discover that, say, the Sun lies 150 million kilometers away from Earth. It is far more difficult (if not impossible), however, to picture this distance in our mind. In this exercise, we will learn to access the often unpalatable distances encountered in astronomy by simply scaling the huge distances to more recognizable, familiar numbers. So long as every distance within the system of interest is scaled by the same

The Kepler Mission (NASA Discover mission #10) is designed to survey a portion of the Milky Way galaxy to discover Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone and determine how many of our galaxy’s billions of stars have such planets. Results from this mission will allow the placing of our solar system within the continuum of planetary systems in the galaxy.

To begin, much like space, the videos and books read and listened to, covered a lot of ground. What these sources explained was simply how big space is and our microscopic place is inside such a colossal surrounding of stars, galaxies, Nebulas, and so much more. To first get a reference point of our closer neighbors, we were brought through an adventure in the countryside with Bill Nye to acknowledge the unimaginable distances between the planets. For example, when earth was scaled to the size of a baseball, it took over well over two miles to reach an absolutely tiny scale model of Pluto. This is striking on it's own and even more staggering is the fact that Pluto is but a inconsequential speck on the map of the solar system, galaxy, and universe

According to Hubble Essentials, The Hubble Telescope was a telescope created by NASA that’s job was to orbit Earth, sustaining a view of the universe that typically far surpasses that of ground-based telescopes. The Hubble Telescope was launched into the atmosphere in 1990. It was placed 353 miles above the surface of the Earth, allowing it to take clear pictures and make ground-breaking discoveries. The telescope was classified as a Cassegrain Reflector. This means that the light hits the telescope’s primary mirror and bounces off to encounter a secondary mirror. The secondary mirror then focuses light through a hole in the center of the primary mirror and leads light to the science instruments within the telescope.

Palomar was launched. At that time, it was the world’s largest and most powerful telescope. According to Dr. Ira S. Bowen, director of observatory, Hale telescope is able to photograph stellar objects that are located billions of light years away from our planet. Data received with this instrument enabled the scientists to significantly expand the limits of their knowledge of the universe. It became obvious that the universe is much larger than astronomers previously thought. The most remote objects that prior telescopes could register were only 109 light years away from the Earth. Notable stellar object 3C-147 was discovered using Hale telescope. Later this object was qualified as a quasar, which is used to describ the most distant nucleus from the earth with high energy. Apparently, this object is located so far away that scientists could not give its accurate distance in light years. However, astronomers stated that 3C-147 has red shift of 54.5%. Cosmological red shift is a physical phenomenon due to the expansion of the universe and the measurement of the red shift gives the approximate distance estimation of a nucleus from the earth. The discovery of such distant object showed that estimates of the size of the universe, made by scientists of the 1920s, were inaccurate. For example, 3C-147 is located outside the Einstein universe since the curvature radius of the universe, estimated by astronomers of the 1920s, was less than the distance to the

Scientists have been researching about outer space for years but still don’t know as much as one may think. Scientists still do not know much about the early solar system. Scientists believed that the solar system was reshuffled around in the past which would explain the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud of icy bodies, the inner planets being destroyed by asteroids and why there isn’t any super Earths around in this solar system. But scientists recently discovered something that may change their theory. In Michael D. Lemonick’s “Plant Nine from Outer Space,” Lemonick claims that scientists may have found a planet with ten times the mass of Earth that is beyond Pluto and may be the reason why objects from the Kuiper belt are following similar orbits

Our system solar consists of a media star, that we call the sun, where we can find eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Also, consists on natural satellites of the planets, numerous comets, asteroids, meteoroids and interplanetary space.

The needs for an instrument that would take images of the universe from the space were inevitable since there were so many challenges studying space and the universe from earth. The Hubble telescope, named after the great scientist who confirmed the big bang theory, was the solution to this and it has been in space for the more than 20 years it was supposed to live. Over the time, the telescope has sent home so much information that mankind has realized how little they knew about the universe. This paper covers the needs for the Hubble telescope in space, the impacts that it has had in physics and science and what eventually happens to the telescope when its time expires.

Edwin Hubble was an American astronomer who revolutionized cosmology and was regarded as one of the most significant observers in the field. While working at Mount Wilson, Hubble discovered that there were more existing galaxies besides the Milky Way Galaxy. Hubble took many photos through the observatory's telescope, and it allowed him to calculate the distance of other galaxies by comparing the varying degrees of luminosity in the stars themselves. Although there was no evidence suggesting the size of the other galaxies that Hubble discovered, he was ultimately able to compute that the Andromeda Nebula was about one million light years away from us. Later in his career Hubble began to explore the way galaxies shifted in space relative to

The Spitzer space telescope has help scientist piece together the Universe’s history, seek out the Milky Way, and is now starting its final mission “Beyond Mission”. The Spitzer space telescope has done for man what we are unable to do that is go beyond the moon and travel to distance galaxies and to see the wonders and beauty of the Universe.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a feat of technology. With this great telescope orbiting Earth, the doors to the many secrets of the universe were opened and has improved our understanding of the universe. Ever since it was launched, it has been making discoveries. But what exactly has the Hubble discovered and how is improving the field of astronomy?

As stated on nasa.gov, “Hubble has made more than 1.2 million observations since it’s missions began in 1990.” Hubble has also expanded astronomers knowledge about the universe and space as a whole. The most famous observation made by this telescope was that of galaxies beyond our own, Milky Way, and discovering that the universe is much larger than further predicted. Before this telescope, ground based telescopes could only see into our galaxy and could not reach any further. Therefore, it was thought that the Milky Way was the only galaxy included in space and the universe. Due to the fact, Hubble’s telescope, expands and allows for the study across a wider light spectrum, astronomers can see beyond further predicted. Another famous observation, studied by astronomers was that of the study of uncharted territories of the cosmos. As proposed on hubblesite.org, “It became increasingly clear to astronomers that Earth’s atmosphere distorted starlight, which made it difficult to obtain razor-sharp views of celestial objects. The idea of placing a telescope in space, above Earth’s turbulent air, had been kicked around for several years. But scientists pondered how to transport a telescope into space.” That was until, Hubble’s creation that displayed imagery of the cosmos. Once again it had accomplished a feat that had troubled ground based telescopes. In