What Did the Hubble Telescope Discover?

What did the Hubble telescope discover?  The Hubble telescope discovered:

• The rate at which the universe is expanding
• The universe is accelerating
• Black holes are common to the centers of galaxies

Let’s look at what else the Hubble Telescope has discovered and how it is impacting astronomy.

Thanks to Hubble, we know that black holes exist, how stars are born and die, and how galaxies grow and evolve. The Hubble telescope:

• Discovered that the universe’s expansion is accelerating.  It did this by measuring the Cepheid variable stars, which are very bright, pulsating stars.
• Determined that the rate of the expansion of the universe is now a lot more accurate than before.
• Is helping to refine the age of the universe and predict its future.
• Determined that the cause for the acceleration of the universe is assumed to be dark energy.  Previously, it was thought that the expansion was slowing because of the influence of gravity.
• Confirmed black holes. In the 1960s, there was a theory that there are black holes at the center of some galaxies.  The Hubble has confirmed that theory and it is now theorized that all galaxies have black holes at their centers.  A black hole is an area where nothing can escape.  Space time is deformed because of a very dense mass and there is a point called the event horizon where anything gets sucked in, even light.  It can be observed by its interaction with other matter.  

History of the Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble space telescope is a very powerful orbiting telescope.  Its mirror is 94 inches in diameter and it was named after the American astronomer Edwin P. Hubble.  It is orbiting 370 miles about the surface of the earth and can observe space without the effects of the atmosphere.  It orbits the earth every 97 minutes.  It captures pictures of galaxies colliding, stars forming and dying, and many things that we could never see before.  It was taken into orbit by the space shuttle Discovery in 1990.

The Hubble space telescope was built to discover new things and help us answer these questions:

• How old is the universe?
• How big is the universe?
• Where do stars, planets, and galaxies come from?
• Do black holes exist?
• How do stars form and die?
• Do other solar systems form the same way as ours did?
• Can life exist on other planets?

Hubble Telescope Impact on Astronomy

There have been thousands of scientific papers written about the information we have received from the HST (Hubble Space Telescope).  Here are a few more discoveries and observations the HST has made:

• Jupiter had some pieces of a comet crash into it.  From this, Hubble found out that Jupiter had large amounts of sulfur and ammonia.  The HST also discovered that the winds on Jupiter blow from its poles to the equator.      
• The HST has shown us that volcanic activity on Venus is slowing down.
• We know that Saturn’s rings are only about 300 feet thick and they are 171,000 miles across.
• Now we know that dust storms of Mars are seasonal and that the temperature is cooling.  

Next Generation Telescope after Hubble 

The Hubble space telescope has neared the end of its life, so there won't be many more Hubble telescope discoveries.  It will be replaced in 2014 with the James Webb space telescope.  This telescope was named after a NASA administrator known for his work on the Apollo missions.

The new telescope will detect infrared radiation and be able to see in that wavelength.  This is important because objects very far away can only be seen with infrared vision.  The mirror is 21.3 feet in diameter and the sunshield is the size of a tennis court.  Its orbit will be much farther than the HST at one million miles.