LET’S GOOGLE THE HUBBLE:

Hubble, the astronomer, looked beyond the boundaries of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, and discovered that the universe is much larger than we thought. Hubble, the telescope, has peered even farther into the outer reaches of our universe, further enhancing our understanding of the cosmos.

Named for Edwin Hubble, the telescope has brought the universe into view with far greater clarity than ever before. Since its launch in 1990 aboard the space shuttle Discovery, Hubble has confirmed the existence of black holes, refined our knowledge of the age and size of the universe, and stared back to nearly the dawn of time, revealing a jumble of primordial galaxies. Hubble is controlled at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science mission is directed by the Space Telescope Science Institute at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. Hubble research and funding engages a significant fraction of the worldwide professional astronomical community.

Nearly 400 years ago, the Italian scientist Galileo opened a whole new world when he pointed the newly invented telescope toward the heavens. His crude telescope detected pockmarks on the moon and satellites around Jupiter, proving that the Earth wasn’t the only special place in the cosmos. Galileo’s discoveries revolutionized our view of our place in the universe.

The launch and deployment of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, likewise, has changed our understanding of the heavens. From capturing the nearby, violent death of a massive star to staring far back in time to see embryonic galaxies, Hubble’s many awe-inspiring moments have brought the beauty and mystery of space to homes all over the world.

The Earth-orbiting observatory collects and analyzes light from visible to near infrared, seeing more sharply than any previous telescope. The telescope has a much clearer view of the heavens because of its unique position above Earth’s roily atmosphere, which distorts starlight, making it dance and wiggle. Its razor-sharp vision of celestial objects has turned the “hints and suspicions”of terrestrial observations into certainties, forcing theorists to rewrite broad-brush theories.

By observing 14,000 astronomical targets, Hubble has contributed significantly to astronomical research, from our solar system to the most distant galaxies.

LIFE CYCLE OF STARS

Moving from planets to stars, the telescope documented in colorful detail the births and deaths of these bright celestial objects. It provided visual proof that pancake-shaped dust disks around young stars are common, suggesting that the raw materials for planet formation are in place. The orbiting telescope showed for the first time that jets of material rising from embryonic stars emanate from the centers of disks of dust and gas, thus turning what was previously merely theory into an observed reality.

DYING IN STYLE

Hubble delivered many stunning pictures of stellar deaths, such as the glowing shrouds surrounding Sun-like stars (called planetary nebulae), the mysterious rings of material around the exploding, massive star called Supernova 1987A, and the twin lobes of matter billowing from Eta Carinae. Ground-based images suggested that many of these objects had simple shapes, but Hubble revealed that their shapes are more complex.

A FEEDING FRENZY

Hubble also is yielding clues to what is causing the flurry of activity in the hearts of many galaxies. These central regions are very crowded, with stars, dust, and gas competing for space. But Hubble managed to probe these dense regions, providing decisive evidence that supermassive black holes — compact “monsters” that gobble up any material that ventures near them — reside in the centers of many galaxies. These elusive “eating machines” cannot be observed directly, because nothing, even light, escapes their stranglehold. But the telescope provided indirect, yet compelling, evidence of their existence. Hubble’s crisp images revealed a doughnut-shaped structure composed of dust and gas around a central object, presumably a black hole. The telescope also helped astronomers determine the masses of several black holes by measuring the velocities of material whirling around them.

NATURE’S “LIGHTBULBS”

Most scientists believe that black holes are the “engines” that power quasars, powerful light beacons located more than halfway across the universe. Hubble has surveyed quasars, confirming that nature’s brightest “lightbulbs” reside in galaxies. The observations also revealed that many of these galaxies are merging with other galaxies. The mergers kick up lots of dust and gas, providing an important clue for how black holes feed and power quasars.

GALAXY BUILDING BLOCKS

Hubble also peered across space to study galaxies in an infant universe. (Probing the distant cosmos means looking back in time.) Hubble’s observations indicate that the young cosmos was filled with much smaller and more irregularly shaped galaxies than those astronomers see in our nearby universe. These smaller structures, composed of gas and young stars, may be the building blocks from which the more familiar spiral and elliptical galaxies formed, possibly through processes such as multiple galaxy collisions. The Hubble observations also show that the early universe more vigorously manufactured stars than it does today.

AN EXPANDING UNIVERSE

The universe doesn’t remain still: it’s expanding. Astronomer Edwin Hubble made that observation in the 1920s. Since then, astronomers have debated how fast it is expanding, a value called the Hubble constant. In May 1999 a team of astronomers announced they had obtained a value for the Hubble constant, an essential ingredient needed to determine the age, size, and fate of the universe. They did it by measuring the distances to 18 galaxies, some as far as 65 million light-years from Earth. By obtaining a value for the Hubble constant, the team then determined that the universe is 12 to 14 billion years old.

A SPEEDY UNIVERSE

One of the most dramatic astronomical discoveries of this century came in 1998, when two independent teams, using Hubble and other telescopes, found strong evidence that the cosmic expansion is accelerating. The orbiting observatory’s major contribution was the accurate measurement of the luminosities of some of the most distant exploding stars, called supernovae.

COSMIC EXPLOSIONS

Hubble teamed up with a fleet of X-ray, gamma-ray, and visible-light observatories in a quest to analyze the sources of gamma-ray bursts. Gamma-ray bursts may represent the most powerful explosions in the universe since the Big Bang. Before 1997 astronomers were stumped: although they had observed more than 2,000 “bursts,” they couldn’t determine whether these fireballs occurred in our galaxy or at remote distances. Hubble images showed unambiguously that the bursts actually reside in far-flung galaxies rife with star formation.

Read yesterdays newspaper? this beauty is only till 2014.An evolution is always a joy, a better one is gonna replace it from then on.

It would be proper if I keep it brief .AS we say “In small proportion we just beauty see, and in just measures life may perfect be”.I hope you will google more on this amazing Hubble.