The people’s telescope
Everyone loves a comeback story and Hubble’s is one of the best. When it launched it was already over budget and behind schedule. Then the first flawed images came out and both Hubble and NASA became a laughing stock. They were lampooned in the media and seen as an expensive waste of taxpayer’s money. However, the repair mission was so audacious and the final images so breathtaking that the public ultimately fell in love with the space telescope.
The number and importance of news stories about Hubble’s images and discoveries have outstripped all other missions – including Apollo. While Hubble’s scientific discoveries are many and groundbreaking, you don’t have to be a scientist to appreciate the sheer beauty of the images it has returned. Hubble’s images have been used in TV shows from Star Trek Voyager to the Big Bang Theory and have changed the way space is portrayed in movies – from empty blackness to being filled with vivid colours. Iconic images, like the Pillars of Creation (right) and the Ultra Deep Field, along with incredible views of planets and nebulae, galaxies and star clusters, moons and dying stars, all seen in unprecedented detail, have taken astronomy into the mainstream and brought the wonders of the cosmos to everyone.