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  The event was so draped in secrecy that, despite its historic nature, no pictures were taken. But no one who was there—nor, for that matter, anyone else who heard of it—would ever forget the moment. With a blinding glare and a shuddering roar, the rocket lifted from its concrete pad and thundered into the early evening sky, soaring up and up and up until it was nothing more than a tiny glowing speck. On the plains of Kazakhstan, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union had just launched the first-ever spacecraft, its payload a 184-pound satellite called Sputnik.

   
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  • The Telescope
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    Hubble Essentials 
• Hubble is one of NASA's most successful and long-lasting  science missions. It has beamed hundreds of thousands of  images back to Earth, shedding light on man
• of th
• great  mysteries of
• astronomy. Its gaze has helped determine the age  of the universe, the identity of quasars, and the existence  of dark energ

• The Hubble Space Telescope is the direct solution to a  problem that telescopes have faced since the very earliest  days of their invention: the atmosphere. The quandary is  twofold: Shifting air pockets in Earth's atmosphere  distort the view of telescopes on the ground, no matter how  large or scientifically advanced those telescopes are. This "atmospheric  distortion" is the reason that the stars seem to twinkle when  you look up at the sky. 

   

    The atmosphere also partially blocks or absorbs certain  wavelengths of radiation, like ultraviolet, gamma- and X-rays,  before they can reach Earth. Scientists can best examine  an object like a star by studying it in all the types of  wavelengths that it emits.

   

    Newer ground-based telescopes are using technological  advances to try to correct atmospheric distortion, but  there's no way to see the wavelengths the atmosphere prevents  from even reaching the planet. 

   

    The most effective way to avoid the problems of the  atmosphere is to place your telescope beyond it. Or, in  Hubble's case, 353 miles (569 km) above the surface of  Earth. 

  • The abject of the space telescope was to prevent ddistortion of the pictures and observations of all of what we attempeted to see in space the atmosphere distorts the vision

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• The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a space shuttle in 1990. Although not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well-known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The HST was built by the United States space agency NASA, with contributions from the European Space Agency, and is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute. It is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble. The HST is one of NASA's Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.^[5]
• Space telescopes were proposed as early as 1923. Hubble was funded in the 1970s, with a proposed launch in 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the Challenger disaster. When finally launched in 1990, scientists foun
• d that the main mirror had been ground incorrectly, severely compromising the telescope's capabilities. However, after a servicing mission in 1993, the telescope was restored to its intended quality. Hubble's orbit outside the distortion of Earth's atmosphere allows it to take extremely sharp images with almost no background light. Hubble's Ultra Deep Field image, for instance, is the
• most detailed visible-light image ever made of the universe's most distant objects. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as accurately determining the rate of expansion of the universe.
• Hubble is the only telescope ever designed to be serviced in space by astronauts. Four servicing missions were performed from 1993 to 2002, but the fifth was canceled on safety grounds following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. However, after spirited public discussion, NASA administrator Mike Griffin approved one final servicing mission, completed in 2009. The telescope is now expected to function until at least 2014, when its scientific successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is due to be launched.

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