Text # 6 “The Hubble Space Telescope”
The Hubble Space Telescope is a powerful telescope that orbits the earth and can show us better pictures of faraway stars than any other telescope on earth can do. It is named after Edwin Hubble, an astronomer who lived in the 1920s. The telescope is in orbit about 600 km above the earth. It can view the heavens without looking through the earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere bends the light that comes through it. When we look at stars from the ground they are blurred because the atmosphere always moves. That is why the Hubble telescope can show pictures that are much sharper than the ones we get from telescopes on earth. Hubble can also observe light that does not reach the surface. It can see ultraviolet light, which has a shorter wavelength and infrared light which is longer than the light we can see. UV light shows places in the universe with a lot of energy, like exploding stars. Infrared light gives us information on more quiet events such as the formation of dust clouds around new stars. In 1990 a space shuttle put the telescope into orbit. About one month later, scientists found out that there was a problem with the telescope’s mirror. The pictures that the camera was sending back to Earth were not very sharp. In 1993 the space shuttle Endeavour was launched and astronauts on board repaired the telescope, so that Hubble could work as planned. In the past 10 years there have been 3 more flights to the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronauts installed better mirrors and cameras that were ten times more powerful than the original ones.
Mark the following statements as true or false (T/F):
1. The Hubble Space Telescope is a powerful telescope that orbits the earth and can show us better pictures of faraway stars. T / F
2. The telescope is in orbit about 900 km above the earth. T / F
3. The Hubble telescope is named after Edwin Hubble, an astronomer who lived in the 1930s. 
4. When we look at stars from the ground they are blurred because the atmosphere always moves. T/ F
5. The Hubble telescope can’t really observe light that does not reach the surface of our planet.
6. After the space shuttle had put the telescope into orbit in 1990, scientists found out that there was a problem with the telescope’s mirror. T / F