spacecraft · low Earth orbit, ~535 km up
Hubble Space Telescope
Visible-light space telescope in low Earth orbit since 1990; its ultra-sharp images reshaped modern astronomy.
Also called: Hubble.
What it is
Spacecraft: Ours. The only things on this list we made. Every kind of thing there is →
How to find the Hubble Space Telescope
Its position moves, so there is no fixed place on a map to point at. The Planetarium works out where it is for your own place and date.
What you will really see
Through a small telescope, on a good night
A moving 'star' gliding steadily across the sky — brightest just after dusk.
Honest, not glamorous — why the pictures here are drawn.
Worth knowing about the Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope is about as long as a large school bus. In weight, about as heavy as two loaded school buses.
- How it moves
- Circles Earth about every 95 minutes, well above the ISS.
- The machines we sent
- A NASA/ESA telescope that has run for over three decades, studying everything from nearby planets to the most distant galaxies; its observations helped pin down the age and expansion rate of the universe.
- What makes it worth knowing
- Launched by the Space Shuttle in 1990 with a flawed mirror -- astronauts flew up in 1993 to fit corrective optics, and it has been serviced four more times since, all by astronauts working in orbit. Flying above Earth's blurring atmosphere let it capture the Hubble Deep Field (thousands of galaxies packed into a patch of sky the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length) and icons like the Pillars of Creation.
Seen next to things you know
The numbers
| Across | 0 km |
|---|
| Distance from Earth | 535 km |
|---|
| Once round its orbit | 1.6 hours |
|---|
How anyone knows this
Nobody flew a tape measure out there. Every number on this page was worked out from the ground:
What it belongs to
Then go outside
Clear tonight? The Planetarium will show you what is worth a look. Then just go out.
