The Hubble Space Telescope was named after Edwin Hubble, the leading American astronomer of the 20th century. It was built under the supervision of NASA after the U.S. Congress had authorized its construction in 1977. It is capable of performing observations in the visible, near-ultraviolet, and near-infrared. Power to the two on-board computers is generated by two 2.4 by 12.1 meter solar panels. The Hubble’s current science instruments include three cameras (Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2, Near Infrared, …showed first 75 words of 944 total…

…showed last 75 words of 944 total…can be used to calculate the age of the universe. The space telescope’s “nominal mission”, as NASA calls it, runs until 2005. In 2002, space walkers will install a new spectrograph. Astronomers hope that the Hubble can operate until the year 2010. As Robert Williams, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, paraphrases, “The HST has shown us not only that the universe is stranger than we supposed, but that it is stranger than we can suppose.”