MAN: We copy you down, “Eagle.”
(upbeat electronic music)
♪ ♪
MALE NARRATOR: Have you ever wanted to take a closer look
at the stars,
see some of the coolest parts of our universe?
Then you’ll need a telescope, a big one.
♪ ♪
The Hubble Space Telescope has a mirror
that’s eight feet across.
♪ ♪
So this is much bigger than any telescope
that you’ve ever used from your backyard.
NARRATOR: Hubble is about 44 feet long
and weighs more than 25,000 pounds.
JOEL: But what’s most impressive about it is
that we put it into space, so in order to do that,
it has to use very small amounts of power.
NARRATOR: NASA fuels Hubble with the largest power source
we know..the Sun.
Two large solar panels capture sunlight
to use as solar energy.
The Hubble Space Telescope is not only big in size
and low on energy.
It’s also fast.
♪ ♪
JOEL: It travels around the Earth in its orbit at something
like 20,000 kilometers per hour,
so about 10,000 miles per hour,
and it orbits the Earth every hour and a half.
NARRATOR: At this rate, the Hubble could travel
from Los Angeles to Boston in about ten minutes.
JASON: One of the reasons that the Hubble Space Telescope
is so powerful today is that
we’ve enabled new ways to use the telescope
that didn’t exist before.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Hubble is the first telescope designed to be
visited in space by astronauts,
who perform repairs,
replace parts,
and update its technology with new instruments.
We installed a brand-new set of cameras and spectrographs
and instruments in Hubble
during its last servicing mission,
and they’re all performing remarkably well.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Although the Hubble Space Telescope launched
over 25 years ago, it continues to be
one of the most important tools we have
to learn about the universe.
♪ ♪
JASON: Hubble has made countless discoveries
through its observations,
and answering new puzzles that have emerged
requires more powerful telescopes.
♪ ♪
And so one of Hubble’s greatest legacies is not just
to answer questions about the universe
but also to open up new mysteries that we can solve
with future telescopes.
♪ ♪
Captioned by Captionmax
