One of the most important telescopes in the history of astronomy, the Hubble Space Telescope, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. NASA is also marking this venerable anniversary by allowing you to see on its website what extraterrestrial Hubble caught in its lens on your birthday.
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990. Located 547 kilometers above Earth, it completes 15 orbits each day, approximately one every 95 minutes. It moves at a speed of about 8 kilometers per second, fast enough to travel across the United States in about 10 minutes, for example.
Its job is to offer insight deep into space, as it can collect more light than the human eye can detect. He succeeds in this with the help of a mirror with a diameter of 2.4 meters, which is less than most telescopes on Earth. But Hubble's location, in low orbit outside our atmosphere, gives it exceptional clarity.
So now NASA lets you see, what has been happening in space on your birthday since 1990. Although it is not necessary that you will immediately get information about what exactly happened on the day you were born, you will be able to see what happened on the same date a few years later (or earlier). Maybe your birthday was a turning point!
More information:
nasa.gov
hubblesite.org
