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Ten Years Hubble Space Telescope Editorial INTERNATIONAL SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE Published by the Association Pro ISSI No 12, June 2004 Ten Years Hubble Space Telescope Editorial Give me the material, and I will century after Kant and a telescope Impressum build a world out of it! built another century later. The Hubble Space Telescope has revo- Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), the lutionised our understanding of great German philosopher, began the cosmos much the same as SPATIUM his scientific career on the roof of Kant’s theoretical reflections did. Published bythe the Friedrich’s College of Königs- Observing the heavenly processes, Association Pro ISSI berg, where a telescope allowed so far out of anyhuman reach, twice a year him to take a glance at the Uni- gives men the feeling of the cos- verse inspiring him to his first mos’ overwhelming forces and masterpiece, the “Universal Nat- beauties from which Immanuel INTERNATIONAL SPACE ural History and Theory of Heav- Kant derived the order for a ra- SCIENCE en” (1755). Applying the Newton- tional and moral human behav- INSTITUTE ian principles of mechanics, it is iour: “the starry heavens above me Association Pro ISSI the result of systematic thinking, and the moral law within me...”. Hallerstrasse 6,CH-3012 Bern “rejecting with the greatest care all Phone +41 (0)31 631 48 96 arbitrary fictions”. In his later Cri- Who could be better qualified to Fax +41 (0)31 631 48 97 tique of the Pure Reason (1781) rate the Hubble Space Telescope’s Kant maintained that the human impact on astrophysics and cos- President intellect does not receive the laws mology than Professor Roger M. Prof.Heinrich Leutwyler, from nature, but rather dictates Bonnet, the former Director of University of Bern them upon it, since our mind re- Science at the European Space Publisher quires a priori rules in space and Agency? It was under his guidance Dr.Hansjörg Schlaepfer, time, in cause and in effect, in that in the frame of a joint NASA / legenda schläpfer wort & bild, order to understand nature. And ESA programme the Hubble Space CH-8185 Winkel the result of his cosmological stud- Telescope was created, leading Layout ies confirms the strength of his to one of the many marvellous Marcel Künzi,marketing · kom- empirical thinking. Sapere aude: achievements of the European munikation, CH-8483 Kollbrunn “dare use your mind,” used he to Space Agency’s science programme. Printing say to his critics. R. M. Bonnet, now the Interna- Schellenberg Druck AG tional Space Science Institute’s Ex- CH-8330 Pfäffikon In his Universal Natural History ecutive Director, gave a fascinat- he wrote: “Nature, on the imme- ing lecture on the Hubble Space diate edge of creation, was as raw Telescope to the Pro ISSI audience Front cover: The beautiful Eski- and undeveloped as possible. Only on 6 November 2003. We are in- mo Nebula is an intricate struc- in the essential properties of the debted to Professor Bonnet for his ture of shells and streamers of gas elements, which made up the kind permission to publish here- around a dying Sun-like star 5000 chaos, can we perceive the sign of with a slightly revised version of light-years away.The disc of mate- that perfection, which nature has his lecture. rial is embellished with a ring of from its origin, since its being is a comet-shaped objects, their tails consequence arising from the eter- Sapere aude! streaming away from the central, nal idea of the Divine understand- dying star. The planetary nebula ing”. Can one better describe the began to form about 10,000 years dawn of this world? Hansjörg Schlaepfer ago, when the dying star started Zürich, June 2004 to expel an intense ‘wind' of high- The present issue of Spatium is speed material out into space. dedicated to a scientist who lived a (Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute, STScI) SPATIUM 12 2 TenYears Hubble SpaceTelescope *) Roger M.Bonnet,International Space Science Institute,Bern The Man... lowing astronomers to determine was the biggest blunder of his life, the age of the universe, and prov- and he even visited Hubble to ing that the universe was expand- thank him in 1931. ing. After World War II, Edwin Hub- It is interesting to note here that as ble returned to the Mount Wilson Edwin Powell Hubble was born in early as 1917, Albert Einstein had and Mount Palomar observatories Marshfield, Missouri, USA,on already introduced his general the- and continued his studies until his November 29, 1889. In 1898, his ory of relativity, and produced a death on September 28,1953.Dur- family moved to Chicago, where model of space based on that theo- ing his life, Hubble had tried to he attended high school. Edwin ry, claiming that space was curved obtain the Nobel Prize, even hir- Hubble was a fine student and an by gravity, therefore that it must ing a publicity agent to promote even better athlete, but he also be able to expand or contract; but his cause in the late 1940s, but all found time to study and earn an he found this assumption so far the effort was in vain as there was undergraduate degree in mathe- fetched, that he revised his theory, no category for astronomy. With matics and astronomy.He then stating that the universe was static. or without a Nobel Prize he will went to Oxford University, where Following Hubble's discoveries,he forever be remembered as the fa- he did not continue his studies in is quoted as having said that sec- ther of observational cosmology astronomy,but instead studied law. ond guessing his original findings and as a pioneer of the distant stars. In 1913, Hubble returned from England and was called to the bar- rister, setting up a small practice in Louisville, Kentucky; but it didn't take long for him to realise that he was not happy as a lawyer, and that his real passion was astronomy. He therefore studied at the Yerkes Observatory and received in 1917 the doctorate in astronomy from the University of Chicago. Fol- lowing a tour of duty in World War I,Hubble was employed at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California, where he devised a classification system for the vari- ous galaxies he observed, sorting them by content, distance, shape, and brightness. It was during these studies that he noticed the red shifts in the emission of light from galaxies, which he correctly inter- preted as moving away from each other at a rate proportional to their distance. From these observations, he was able to formulate in 1929 Figure 1 the so-called Hubble's Law, al- Edwin Hubble around 1920 *) Pro ISSI lecture, Bern,November 6,2003 SPATIUM 12 3 ...and the Space Telescope Institute in Balti- above the ground, inclined 28 deg. more (USA) to come up with a to the equator. Hubble’s orbit Telescope cleverly designed corrective optics above the Earth and its excellent package that would restore the stability allow astronomers to telescope’s eyesight completely. make the high resolution observa- A crew of astronauts including tions that are essential to open Claude Nicollier carried out the new windows to planets, stars, and repairs necessary to restore the tel- galaxies. Furthermore, access to Its History escope to its intended level of per- the infrared and ultraviolet light formance during the first Hubble window can only be achieved In the 1970s, NASA and ESA took Servicing Mission (SM1) in De- from space, because the atmos- up the idea of a space-based tele- cember 1993. This mission cap- phere prevents it from reaching scope. Funding began to f low in tured the attention of both as- the ground. 1977.Later, it was decided to name tronomers and the public at large the telescope after Edwin Hubble. to a very high degree: meticulous- At the heart of the HST are a 2.4 m Although the Hubble Space Tele- ly planned and brilliantly execut- primary mirror,fine guidance sen- scope (HST) was downsized later ed, the mission succeeded on all sors and gyroscopes as well as a to a 2.4 m primary mirror diame- counts. It will go down in history collection of four science instru- ter from the initial 3 m, the project as one of the great highlights of ments that work from the near in- started to attract significant atten- human space f light. Hubble was frared through the visible to ultra- tion from astronomers. back in business! violet light. There are two cameras and two combined camera/spec- The precision-ground mirror was The European contribution cov- trographs. Power for the comput- finished in 1981 and the assembly ered a nominal 15% stake in the ers and the scientific instruments of the entire spacecraft was com- mission including the Faint Object onboard is provided by large solar pleted in 1985. The plan called for Camera, the first set of two solar panels. a launch on NASA’s Space Shuttle panels that powered the spacecraft in 1986 but just months before the as well as a team of space scientists The telescope uses an elaborate scheduled launch, the Challenger and engineers at the Space Tele- system of attitude controls to se- disaster caused a 2-year delay of scope Science Institute (STScI) cure its stability during observa- the entire Shuttle programme. in Baltimore. Contraves Space of tions. The spacecraft has a point- HST was finally launched on 24 Zurich provided the Primary De- ing stability of 0.007 arcsec,which April 1990. Soon after, the tension ployment Mechanism, assuring is equivalent to a 1 coin in Paris built up as astronomers examined the deployment of the solar panels seen from Bern.
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