Search results
Edwin Hubble, for whom the Hubble Space Telescope is named, was one of the leading astronomers of the twentieth century. His discovery in the 1920s that countless galaxies exist beyond our own Milky Way galaxy revolutionized our understanding of the universe and our place within it.
This timeline describes Hubble’s history from the first proposal of a space telescope by Lyman Spitzer in 1946, through the completion of Hubble’s five servicing missions in the 1990s and 2000s, and to many of the significant observations and discoveries Hubble has made during its years in orbit.
Although the Hubble Space Telescope has been in orbit since 1990, its origins date long before that. The first serious concepts of a space-based optical observatory began just after World War II. In 1946, Lyman Spitzer, a professor and researcher at Yale University, argued that a space telescope would offer great advantages over ground-based ...
Astronomer Lyman Spitzer envisioned a future for space exploration that deepened humanity’s curiosity about the cosmos. A visionary behind the Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer was among the earliest astronomers pioneering a revolutionary way to explore the universe through astronomical satellites.
12 sie 2012 · In October 1923, using the Hooker telescope, Hubble spotted what he first thought was a nova star flaring up dramatically in the Andromeda 'nebula'.
20 maj 2013 · In October 1923, Hubble was examining photographs he had taken of the Andromeda nebula with the Hooker Telescope when he realized that he might have identified a Cepheid variable—an extremely...
24 kwi 2020 · The launch of the Hubble Space Telescope took place on April 24, 1990, during the STS-31 mission. The Shuttle flew to an unusually high 380-mile orbit to ensure that Hubble would operate above as much of the Earth’s atmosphere as possible.
