One-minute read. Written by Rajlaxmi Singh – a grade 6 student.

Before I tell you about he Hubble Space Telescope, let me give you a little background. At the beginning of humankind, man thought that everything is visible to naked eye (meaning eyes without any telescope etc).

Then came Galileo – who was an Italian astronomer born in 1564 , who actually helped to prove that the Earth revolved around the sun. His telescope discovered Jupiter’s four biggest moons! And so began the age of Space Evolution.

After centuries, our telescopes became more powerful and complex, leading to further astonishing discoveries.

What Is the Hubble Space Telescope?

The Hubble Space Telescope is a large telescope in space. NASA, which is an American space agency, launched Hubble in 1990.

Hubble is as long as a large school bus. It weighs as much as two adult elephants and travels around Earth at about 5 miles per second. That is as fast as driving a car from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast in 10 minutes!

Hubble faces toward space. It takes pictures of planets, stars and galaxies. It has seen stars being born and die. It has seen galaxies that are trillions of miles away. Hubble also has seen comet pieces crash into the gases above Jupiter.

Scientists have learned a lot about space from Hubble pictures. The pictures are beautiful to look at too.

What’s the origin of the name Hubble?

The telescope is named after Edwin Hubble, an American astronomer born in 1889. He proved that the universe was expanding – he also thought that we couldn’t be alone in such a big universe. This thought lead to the discoveries of worlds beyond our own.

Hubble Telescope is the first major photosensitive telescope to be placed in space. It was sent in space in 1990, and since then has been giving us more and more information about galaxies other than our own. Scientists have, for over thirty years to observe Supernovas,  Alien Galaxies, Milky Way etc. It has also been used to collect further information about the planets in our galaxy too.

Hubble was launched 30 years ago, in 1990. It was seen as a big development in astronomy since Galileo’s telescope.

This year it celebrates its 30th anniversary with  many breath-taking images of Alien Galaxies, Outer Space Collisions etc. A few are given below:

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Written by Rajlaxmi Singh
Rajlaxmi is a grade 6 student. She loves painting in acrylic colours. She also loves jungles and has done some wildlife photography. She likes to click blooming flowers. She calls herself a friends person and is comfortable with herself.

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