NASA marks Hubble's 20th anniversary

Scientists at the US space agency are preparing a 'new' collection of images scheduled for release on the 20th anniversary of the launching of the Hubble telescope.

NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) scientists are set to commemorate the 20 years of the Hubble Space Telescope's service via the release of new images taken by Hubble on April 24, US media reported Saturday.

The agency has already published a number of images in a new book titled: A Journey Through Space and Time ahead of the occasion.

The ten billion dollar outer space observatory, which orbits the Earth at an altitude of 350 miles (560 kilometers), has already circled the planet 100,000 times and produced clear and unprecedented images through focusing on different corners of the universe.

Despite a number of problems that originally arose due to the telescope's 'inaccurate' shaping, NASA revamped the device and decided to keep it operational until 2014 when it will be replaced by another orbiting telescope, the James Webb.

Named after the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, space telescope studies have made major contributions to humanity's understanding of the cosmos, including the scientific calculation of the age of the universe, which is known to be around 13.75 billion years old, and its accelerating expansion after its inception in the Big Bang.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=122994§ionid=3510208.