Happy Birthday, Hubble



    Today's Hubble Telescope celebrates its birthday, a joint project between NASA and the European Space Agency. The device is one of the largest NASA observatories and can operate in the infrared and ultraviolet ranges. About how important Hubble is for science and what discoveries were made using its images, Sci-One spoke with Zelenyikot (Vitaly Egorov), a popularizer of space research and an employee of the private space company Dauria Aerospace.

    - What is the significance of Hubble for astronomy as a whole?

    - Great. Virtually no serious astronomical research is complete without the use of Hubble data. Its capabilities and a data archive accumulated over 25 years allow us to conduct many studies of the Universe, as well as supplement or confirm certain hypotheses.

    - What hypotheses did Hubble confirm?

    - Observations of supernova explosions have confirmed the hypothesis of Edwin Hubble himself, thanks to which the telescope got a name about the recession of galaxies. The same observation became the basis of a new hypothesis about dark matter, which should be filled intergalactic space.

    - And what significance does Hubble play in popularizing science?

    - Hubble’s pictures probably know everything. This is the most popularization. Hubble revealed to the world all the beauty of the universe.

    - What is the biggest achievement of the Hubble?

    - Complex issue. It is impossible to answer unequivocally. In my opinion, the main achievement of the Hubble is the opportunity to look into the Universe more than ten billion years ago. By ground means this is almost impossible to achieve.

    - Do you think interstellar travel will be possible in the future?

    “They are possible now.” It is enough to accelerate the spacecraft to a speed of 17 km / s. It will overcome the attraction of the Sun and be carried away into interstellar space. Another thing is that such a flight to the nearest star will take tens of thousands of Earth years.

    - Is it possible to use Hubble to photograph, for example, black holes?

    - Black holes cannot be photographed in any way, because light cannot leave the event horizon. Hubble can remove a dense cloud of dust and gas around a black hole. It can observe the trajectories of stars around a black hole and thereby evaluate its mass and, most importantly, confirm its presence.

    - And extraterrestrial life?

    - Extraterrestrial life can be photographed if only it flies to a fairly close distance. So far, the Hubble is limited only to the discovery of planets in other stars, and their habitability is the task of other telescopes.

    - Can I call the photographs taken by Hubble, a movement in time (because the objects in the photographs are located millions of light years from Earth)?

    - This is more a look into the past, rather than moving. We just see what happened before. Just like we hear the thunder of lightning that has already disappeared.

    - Is it possible to create an analogue of Hubble in Russia?

    - Maybe. Moreover, it has long been created, and in 2021 its launch is planned. The Russian Spectrum-UV Observatory should conduct observations of the Universe in the visible and ultraviolet range. The diameter of the Hubble mirror is 2.4 meters, the diameter of the Spectrum-UV mirror is 1.6 meters. That is, the possibilities will be lower than those of the Hubble, but given that by that time the Hubble has completed its work or the quality of its data has fallen, our Spectrum-UV will take the place of the cult telescope.

    Interviewed: Ekaterina Shutova , especially for Sci-One .



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