One of the crew members that worked on the most iconic telescope of mankind, Hubble shares their knowledge. The velocity of light, the stars and star systems, the space and night sky, and more become a big phenomenon for the nascent mind.
For example, people don’t know that one light-year is the same as traveling 5.8 trillion miles on your flight pass. It is known that the size of space itself is 23 trillion light-years in diameter, and it is impossible to look at that size ever. But as humans, we keep trying.
There are several facts though and we cannot tell how big the universe really is. Because we cannot tell its exact size, we have to make guesses, and scientists keep doing that. Just to be specific, the light will never be able to travel from one end of the universe to the other end. And, this is a phenomenal realization because light travels at an amazing speed of 186,000 miles per second, and the end of the universe is not going to come till another 200 billion years. Now, this is a great thing for new-age space researchers.
If we talk about the most important piece of technology that has allowed us to see these vast distances is the Hubble Telescope because it was the first of its kind and will ever be. Galileo’s telescope is still in the museum and they date back to the 1600s, but in the 19th century, we came with Hubble. Though its lifetime is coming to an end, it is still the best out there. Because it was a major achievement as it was placed in the space above any distortion due to the clouds and atmosphere. Thus, we were able to see whatever we know about the universe, the galaxies, and so on. Without them, nothing would be possible.
Dr. Steven Hawley was one of the crew members who contributed to the Hubble in 1990. And, today after 31 years the telescope is going to be replaced by James Webb because this has played a role unlike anything in the history of mankind. The Hubble has been in orbit for 30 years now and has collected light from millions of light-years away. This is invaluable data for today and future scientists. Speaking to Betway, he gives us a glimpse at some of the stunning facts about the whole mission.
He is now the director of physics and professor at Kansas University, and Dr. Hawley has a lot of stories to tell. Because of the missions that spanned between 1984 to 1999, finally, the Hubble was in space and ready to take pictures. The 69-year-old has spent more than 32 days in space across the 5 space missions between these years and played a role in setting up the Hubble, the best of the telescopes we have had till this day. Among them, the most notable was 1990 in STS Discovery, and 1997 maintenance mission called STS-86 Discovery.
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