Servicing Mission 4 > Hubble Trivia

Hubble Trivia

• In its 19 years of observing the universe, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has made more than 880,000 observations and snapped over 570,000 images of 29,000 celestial objects.
• In its 19-year lifetime, the telescope has made more than 100,000 trips around our planet. As a result, Hubble has racked up plenty of frequent-flier miles, about 2.8 billion. This distance is equivalent to the planet Neptune's average distance from the Sun.
• Hubble does not travel to stars, planets, and galaxies. It images them as it whirls around Earth at a rate of 17,500 mph (28,000 kph).
• Hubble cannot image the Sun or the planet Mercury. The Sun’s bright light would damage the telescope’s electronic components. Mercury is too close to the bright Sun to be imaged.
• Pointing the Hubble Space Telescope and locking onto distant celestial targets is like holding a laser light steady on a dime that is 400 miles away.
• NASA named the observatory after American astronomer Edwin P. Hubble (1889—1953). Dr. Hubble confirmed an "expanding" universe, which provided the foundation for the Big Bang theory.
• Hubble is nearly the size of a large school bus. It is 43.5 ft (13.2 m) in length and weighs 24,500 lb (11,110 kg).
• In an average orbit, Hubble uses about the same amount of energy as 28 100-watt light bulbs.
• Hubble’s six nickel-hydrogen (NiH) batteries have a storage capacity equal to about 20 car batteries.
• The energy needed to power Hubble comes from the Sun. Hubble’s solar panels power the telescope when orbiting the Sun side of Earth. They also charge the batteries that power the telescope when it orbits the night side of Earth.
• Each month the orbiting observatory generates more than 80 gigabytes of data, enough information to fill 80 complete sets of encyclopedias.
• Hubble’s 19 years' worth of observations have produced nearly 39 terabytes of data, enough to fill almost two collections in the U.S. Library of Congress.
• Astronomers have used Hubble data to publish more than 7,500 scientific papers, making it one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built. In 2008 scientists published nearly 700 journal articles based on Hubble data.