The Hubble Space Telescope turned 30 on Friday. Mark Mozena, Astrophysicist, tells us more about its anniversary…
It launched on April 24th 1990. When it first went up, it was a “disappointment” according to Mozena. “The shape of one of the mirrors was incorrect. It changed in a way we should have predicted”.
Following a service mission, the imagery provided by the Hubble Space Telescope was no longer fuzzy compared to its initial launch.
Some Hubble Space Telescope Statistics:
- 4 billion observations
- Over 47,000 different celestial objects observed
- 164TB of data produced by the telescope
- 17,000 scientific papers generated as a result of data from the Telescope
Additionally, Mozena mentions that the telescope will no longer have service missions to support it, and estimates a 5 to 10 year lifespan for the Hubble Space Telescope.
