The Hubble Space Telescope (HST), named for astronomer Edwin Hubble, was launched on April 24, 1990. It is the world's first space-based optical telescope and works on the same principle as the first telescope built in the 1600s by Isaac Newton. The 45-foot-long, 13.5-ton telescope weighs 11,110 kg and is about the size of a large school bus. The telescope orbits Earth at an altitude of 612 km at speed of 28,000 kph; one orbit takes only 97 minutes. The spacecraft is powered by solar arrays converting sunlight into electricity. Rechargeable batteries supply back-up power when Hubble is in Earth's shadow. Hubble Telescope has already undergone several repair missions.

In order to take pictures of objects in our solar system and beyond the Hubble telescope must be extremely steady and accurate: it has resolution of about the width of a human hair seen at a distance of 1.5 km. (The telescope took about 750,000 images of 24,000 celestial objects.)Among other accomplishments, the telescope's discovered over a dozen of planets that orbit distant stars, took a glimpse of the universe as it existed 12 billion years ago, confirmed the additional moons around Pluto, and took detailed photos of our galaxy.

Children send the Hubble questions like, “Do you have a picture of God and can you send it to me?”, “Have you seen an angel today?”, “Can you find my cat?”.

Astronautics faculty Prof. Shemansky carried on spectroscopic and chemistry studies of chemistry and fluorescent emission hydroxyl (OH) molecules thought to come from water extracted from the icy satellites of Saturn.

This is the Hubble Space Telescope view ofan unusual phenomenon in space called a light echo. Light from a star that erupted nearly five years ago continues propagating outward through a cloud of dust surrounding the star.The light reflects or "echoes" off the dust and then travels to Earth.

X-rays shine from heated material falling into a black hole.

Sombrero Galaxy