The Hubble telescope
Put into orbit at an altitude of 600 km by the space shuttle Discovery on 25 April 1990, Hubble has transmitted more than 750,000 spectacular images and streams of data from the ends of the universe, opening a new era in astronomy.
But the telescope, the fruit of a collaboration between the U.S. space agency, NASA, and the European Space Agency (ESA), had a troubled start and did not become operational until three years after its deployment.
It had to be fixed because of a flaw in the shape of its mirror, a sensitive operation that was not carried out until 1993 in the first shuttle-borne service mission, which installed corrective lenses to fix it.
From that time on Hubble has transmitted stupefying images of supernovas – gigantic explosions that mark the death of a star – and revealed that there are mysterious black holes in the centre of virtually all galaxies.
V838 Monocerotis
Astronomers discover 32 new planets
Astronomers have announced the discovery of 32 new planets outside our Solar System, some of them only a few times larger than Earth.
The relatively small size increases the odds that these exoplanets could have conditions similar to the ones that gave rise to life on Earth.
Scientists made the finds using the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, or HARPS, the most successful low-mass exoplanet hunter in the world.
Put into orbit at an altitude of 600 km by the space shuttle Discovery on 25 April 1990, Hubble has transmitted more than 750,000 spectacular images and streams of data from the ends of the universe, opening a new era in astronomy.
But the telescope, the fruit of a collaboration between the U.S. space agency, NASA, and the European Space Agency (ESA), had a troubled start and did not become operational until three years after its deployment.
It had to be fixed because of a flaw in the shape of its mirror, a sensitive operation that was not carried out until 1993 in the first shuttle-borne service mission, which installed corrective lenses to fix it.
From that time on Hubble has transmitted stupefying images of supernovas – gigantic explosions that mark the death of a star – and revealed that there are mysterious black holes in the centre of virtually all galaxies.
Astronomers discover 32 new planets
Astronomers have announced the discovery of 32 new planets outside our Solar System, some of them only a few times larger than Earth.The relatively small size increases the odds that these exoplanets could have conditions similar to the ones that gave rise to life on Earth.
Scientists made the finds using the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, or HARPS, the most successful low-mass exoplanet hunter in the world.