Hubble Space Telescope: NASA’s longest living Space Telescope celebrates 30th anniversary

On April 24, 2020, NASA celebrated its 30 years of launch of Hubble Space Telescope. It is one of the longest living Space Telescopes in the world.

About Hubble Space Telescope

• The Hubble Space Observatory is run in partnership with European Space Agency. 
• The telescope has played a crucial role in the discovery of accelerating expansion of the cosmos. 
• Also, it was Hubble Telescope that gave the evidence of existence of black holes in the centres of the galaxy.

Significance

• The Telescope has its own unique design to be repaired and upgraded by the astronauts. 
• This unique feature of the telescope has kept it alive throughout the technological upgradations since its launch. 
• It is the longest living space telescope on the earth.

Cosmic Reef

• On its 30^th anniversary, the Hubble Telescope captured a Cosmic Reef. 
• The Cosmic Reef is a group of stars that has an appearance of a coral reef undersea. 
• Each star in the group is ten times the size of the sun. 
• The stars are in a nebula. Nebula is a giant cloud of gas and dust. 
• The nebula is formed due to the dust emitted from these stars. 
• They are large Magellanic Clouds.
• The reef has red colour glowing around. 
• The red colour comes due to the glowing nitrogen and hydrogen gas. 
• The blue colour in the reef is because of the presence of oxygen.