The Hubble Space Telescope is an astronomical instrument orbiting Earth, designed to capture high-quality images and collect data from outer space. It was launched on April 24, 1990, by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of an international collaboration. Thanks to this telescope, numerous discoveries about the universe have been made. Now, Hubble's successor is taking over to continue making new discoveries.
In this article we are going to tell you about the successor to Hubble, its characteristics and importance.
Hubble Space Telescope Features
One of the Hubble Telescope's most remarkable features is its ability to observe the cosmos from outside Earth's atmosphere. The atmosphere can distort and filter the light that reaches Earth, limiting the quality of ground-based observations. However, by being in orbit, Hubble avoids these limitations, allowing for a much sharper and more precise view of distant celestial objects. To learn more about its discoveries, you can visit What the Hubble Telescope Has Discovered.
Hubble uses a series of specialized instruments, such as cameras and spectrographs, to capture images in different wavelengths of light, from ultraviolet to near-infrared. This provides scientists with a complete and detailed view of a wide range of cosmic phenomena, such as distant galaxies, nebulae, forming stars, and planets inside and outside our solar system.
It has great capacity to obtain high resolution images. Thanks to this ability, it has provided amazingly detailed images of celestial objects, revealing structures and details that were previously difficult to observe. These images have enabled significant advances in our understanding of the universe and have captured the imagination of the general public.
It has also played an important role in precise measurements of distances to distant stars and galaxies. This has led to more accurate estimates of the expansion rate of the universe and has helped scientists improve their cosmological models.
Over the years, Hubble has been the subject of several maintenance and upgrade missions by astronauts on the Space Shuttle. These missions have made it possible to replace instruments, repair components and improve its overall performance, significantly extending its useful life. Now, Hubble's successors are going to take over.
Hubble successors
The Hubble Space Telescope has traveled nearly 600 kilometers from Earth at 28,000 kilometers per hour, taking tens of thousands of observations and completing 1 million long-term observations of different celestial bodies . More than 10,000 astronomers using Hubble have published some 15,000 research papers, making it one of the most efficient scientific instruments ever built.
There is no doubt that the Hubble Telescope has been a true revolution for astronomy, especially due to its ability to be repaired and improved by astronauts, which has extended its useful life over the years. However, after the last servicing mission in May 2009, extensive work has been carried out on its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope.
Let's compare the parameters of the Hubble and James Webb telescopes. While the older Hubble telescope has only a single 2,4-meter monolithic mirror, the James Webb telescope has 18 hexagonal sections for an equivalent primary aperture of 6,5 meters.
Its cost is close to $9 billion. The telescope, a joint project of NASA with the European and Canadian space agencies, was renamed James Webb in September 2002 after one of NASA's administrators during the heyday of the Apollo program.
James Webb has made many innovative technical developments . To highlight a few, there's his segmented primary mirror, which folds into three parts for launch and reassembles in space after liftoff; the optics made of beryllium, an ultralight and wear-resistant material; and the cryocoolers, which cool the telescope's detectors to just 7 Kelvin, optimizing its observations in the infrared, the region of the spectrum that James Webb will be observing.
After almost eight years of construction, all the parts of the telescope are ready, notably the hexagonal section of the primary mirror, which is covered in a micron-sized layer of gold (which is especially reflective in the infrared), and four instruments scientists to be placed at the telescope. These are a near-infrared camera, a near-infrared multi-object spectrograph, another mid-infrared instrument, and a camera with tunable filters. James Webb's spectral working range is between 0,6 and 27 nanometers, with some visible light capabilities.
Objectives of the successor to Hubble
The Hubble's successor will study all stages of cosmic history, from the first flashes after the Big Bang, through the formation of planetary systems capable of supporting life on worlds like Earth, to the evolution of our solar system. Another difference between this space telescope and the Hubble is that, unlike the Hubble, it will not orbit close to Earth, just a few hundred kilometers from the surface, but rather 1,5 million kilometers away, facing Earth. To learn more about its functions, you can visit the Hubble Space Telescope website.
From the Sun, at the point where the gravitational forces of the Sun, Earth, and Moon are in balance (known as Lagrange 2 or L2) and viewing conditions are much better than in low orbits like the Sun. Hubble. Of course, maintenance visits by astronauts are impossible, so it would have to be more robust and reliable than Hubble. Its enormous size (6.500 kg) also allows it to be launched into orbit, making it the most powerful version of the Ariane 5 ECA in Europe.
James Webb has an expected operational life of at least five years, carrying enough fuel for up to ten years of L2 maneuvers. If all goes well, it will last until 2030, perfectly complementing the giant 30- and 40-meter ground-based telescopes currently under construction and expected to be operational by the end of the next decade.
