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The telescope that needed glasses still changed astronomy
Giulia Fontana
Essay
Fri, Oct 9
·
a1
· 1 min read
The
Hubble
Space
Telescope
went
into
space
in
April
1990
.
Scientists
waited
for
its
first
pictures
.
When
the
pictures
arrived
,
they
were
blurry
.
Engineers
studied
the
problem
carefully
.
They
found
that
the
main
mirror
was
wrong
.
It
had
been
ground
to
the
wrong
shape
.
The
error
was
tiny
.
It
was
about
one
-
fiftieth
the
width
of
a
human
hair
.
But
in
space
,
tiny
errors
matter
a
lot
.
NASA
decided
to
fix
the
telescope
in
orbit
.
Hubble
was
built
so
that
astronauts
could
fix
it
.
In
December
1993
,
astronauts
flew
up
to
Hubble
.
They
worked
outside
the
spacecraft
five
times
.
Each
spacewalk
was
long
and
difficult
.
The
astronauts
fitted
special
corrective
mirrors
.
These
mirrors
worked
like
glasses
for
the
telescope
.
Then
the
new
pictures
arrived
.
They
were
sharp
and
clear
.
Hubble
could
now
see
galaxies
billions
of
light
-
years
away
.
Scientists
were
amazed
.
A
mirror
ground
wrong
by
a
tiny
fraction
had
nearly
ended
the
mission
.
A
daring
repair
saved
it
.
Hubble
went
on
to
become
one
of
the
most
important
telescopes
in
history
.
It
showed
us
the
age
of
the
universe
.
It
showed
us
how
galaxies
are
born
.
One
small
flaw
,
caught
and
fixed
,
changed
everything
.
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