Space Technology

From dark energy to exoplanets to black holes, the Hubble Space Telescope helps astronomers understand some of the biggest mysteries of the universe and find intelligent life in the universe.

The universe was a different looking place 20 years ago as the Hubble Space Telescope was tucked inside the space shuttle Discovery's cargo bay and readied for launch.

The most powerful optical telescopes on Earth could see only halfway across the universe. Even estimates for the age of the universe disagreed by a big margin. Supermassive black holes were only suspected to be the powerhouses behind a rare zoo of energetic phenomena seen at great distances. We didn't know if any planets orbited other stars.

Hubble, the first major optical observatory in space, gave us a rapid-fire series of discoveries and breakthroughs after its deployment into low Earth orbit April 25, 1990. The instrument quickly became the trailblazer of a golden age of space astronomy.

Today, Hubbies 2.4-meter mirror seems puny compared to the giant 8- to 10-meter giant monolithic and segmented mirrors at major mountaintop observatories. But the pristine view from above Earth's atmosphere makes a huge difference. Hubble consistently has a 10 times sharper view than ground-based telescopes. True, adaptive optics has narrowed this margin, but Hubble still yields razor-sharp images across a wide field of view. Add to that its unparalleled ability to see high-contrast objects because there is no sky background.

Hubbies optically stable view allows revisited targets a guaranteed same acuity and repeatability of data quality. Hubble can see across a wide swath of the spectrum of light, from ultraviolet all the way to near-infrared, giving it truly "panchromatic" vision.

Armed with these powerful capabilities, Hubble has made remarkable discoveries across astronomy, rewritten textbooks, been the source of more than 7,000 science papers, and reawakened the public to the wonders of the universe.

The author is an Electrical engineer specializing in cutting edge semiconductor technology with an eye out for the long overdue galactic rendezvous. Checkout the nifty blog on Alien Civilizations for a thorough scientific account of the Life Beyond, without the speculative conjuncture.