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Reader Supplement HERE & NOW Hubble Space TelescopeVicki M. Harder |
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Reader Supplement HERE & NOW Hubble Space TelescopeVicki M. Harder |
| The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is the first mission of NASA's long term space-based obseratory. It was deployed in low-Earth orbit (600 kilometers) by the space shuttle Discovery crew on April 25, 1990. The HST is modular in design to protect the spacecraft against instrument and equipment failures. Soon after launch, however, it was discovered that the primary mirror was nonfunctional and there were also problems with flexing of the solar panels. Subsequent shuttle missions have corrected these problems and have made other upgrades to the system producing impressive images and data of our solar system that were previously undetectable. |
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In the Science News Reader article New Saturn moons or only transient debris? the Hubble Space Telescope detected two objects never seen before. Both appeared to be moons of Saturn but further analysis revealed that one of the ojects was instead only a small clump of matter that had broken off from a moon. The Voyager craft found evidence of this type of activity but the new images mark the first documentation from Earth's vicinity. |
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The Hubble Space Telescope has also provided new information about Jupiter. In the Science News Reader article Hubble finds stormy weather above Jupiter researchers used a spectrograph to study Jupiter's atmosphere. They found that the atmosphere is particularly stormy more like that of a star instead of a planet. Although another craft, the International Ultraviolet Explorer, had already hinted at such activity, Hubble's higher sensitivey provied more compelling evidence. |
| According to the Science News Reader article Ganymede may have an aurora of its own ultraviolet emissions recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that the Jupiter moon has it's own polar light show, the first moon known to posess an aurora. In this case, the HST was used first as a scout for the Galileo spacecraft and then as a collaborator during Galileo's 2-year tour of the Jovian system. During the next scheduled upgrade of the HST the Hubble's spectrographs will be replaced with an instrument that can simultaneously record images and spectra allowing the direct detection of Ganymede's aurora. |
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