The Hubble Space Telescope is a giant, advanced robot camera orbiting Earth that sends back crystal-clear images of space. Named after astronomer Edwin Hubble, it orbits 340 miles high to escape Earth's blurry air and see distant galaxies! Kids will love these amazing views.
Have you ever looked up at the night sky and wondered what’s really out there? Beyond the Moon and the planets you see with your own eyes, there are billions of stars and galaxies shining light across space!
To see these faraway wonders, scientists needed a super-powerful eye, one that didn't have to look through Earth's blurry air. That's where the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) comes in! Launched by NASA on April 24, 1990, it’s been zooming around our planet, sending back pictures that have completely changed what we know about space for kids and grown-ups alike. It’s like having a super-strong camera floating 340 miles (about 547 kilometers) above us!
Mira says:
"Wow, Finn! Imagine a telescope so big and clear that it can spot galaxies that started forming just a little while after the universe began! Hubble lets us look back in time—that’s way cooler than any history book!"
What is the Hubble Space Telescope, Anyway?
The Hubble Space Telescope isn't something you look through with your eye; it's actually a giant, super-advanced robot camera orbiting Earth! It’s the first large optical space observatory telescope. It was named after a very famous American astronomer named Edwin Hubble, who proved there were other galaxies besides our own, the Milky Way!
The main reason Hubble flies in space is to escape Earth’s atmosphere. Our air is great for breathing, but it’s bad for looking at stars because it makes the light look wobbly or blurry—that’s why stars appear to twinkle! By being high up, Hubble gets super clear pictures, seeing light that the atmosphere usually blocks, like ultraviolet light.
Mind-Blowing Fact!
Hubble is about the size of a large school bus and weighs as much as two adult elephants!
Hubble's Amazing Size and Speed
Even though it is huge, Hubble had to be small enough to fit inside the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle that carried it into orbit!
Its most important part is the main mirror, which acts like a giant catcher's mitt for light. This mirror is 94.5 inches (or 2.4 meters) across!
To give you an idea of how powerful that mirror is, it collects about 40,000 times more light than the human eye!
(27,000 kph)
(One day/night cycle)
(About the length of a school bus)
How Did the Hubble Telescope Get Its Super Vision?
Getting Hubble ready was a HUGE adventure with a few bumps along the way. The idea for a space telescope was first suggested way back in 1923!
The actual building took decades, but when it launched in 1990, there was a big problem: the main mirror had been ground slightly wrong—the edge was too flat by just a tiny bit, like one-fiftieth the width of a human hair! This caused fuzzy, blurry pictures.
The Hero Mission: Fixing the Flaw
Because Hubble was built to be fixed in space, NASA sent brave astronauts on a special mission in December 1993!
They installed new gadgets, including special glasses called corrective optics, that acted like a special lens to fix the mirror's mistake. This fix worked perfectly and made Hubble’s images super sharp!
💡 Did You Know?
Hubble has been repaired and upgraded five times by astronauts, with the last servicing mission happening in 2009!
🎯 Quick Quiz!
What famous astronomer inspired the name of the space telescope?
Who Has Hubble Shown Us?
Hubble’s photos aren't just pretty; they are science treasures! They help us understand how our whole universe works. For kids learning about space, Hubble is the ultimate classroom window!
- It helped scientists figure out the age of the universe is about 13.7 billion years!
- It took the famous Hubble Ultra Deep Field image, showing thousands of faint galaxies in a tiny patch of sky.
- It spotted black holes sucking in everything around them.
- It captured the first pictures of planets outside our own solar system!
Hubble keeps orbiting Earth at about 5 miles (8 km) per second, so fast it could zip across the USA in just 10 minutes! Even though it's getting older, it’s still capturing amazing views, paving the way for its even bigger successor, the James Webb Space Telescope!
Questions Kids Ask About Space
Keep Looking Up!
From blurry stars to crystal-clear galaxies, the Hubble Space Telescope has shown us just how vast and amazing space is. Every time you see a stunning space picture, remember the brave builders, the clever astronauts who fixed it, and the incredible technology that lets us explore the universe from our own planet! Keep learning, and maybe one day you'll be the one designing the next amazing space explorer!
