The Scientific Impact of the Hubble Space Telescope

Ever since Galileo used his homemade telescope to make the first scientific observations of astronomical objects, scientists have used telescopes to explore the universe that was no longer limited to what the naked eye could see. The Hubble Space Telescope is a marvellous example of a modern day telescope capable of transmitting varied and extensive data of the far corners of the universe. Even though it had a rocky start arising from an error in the fabrication of its main mirror, it went on to change forever many fields of astronomy. The Hubble is the first of its kind to explore the vastness of space. Its size, parts, power and speed are all parts of the Hubble's mission of conveying data and making discoveries. The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the many amazing inventions of modern time and contributes to millions of scientific discoveries.

Since its launch in the 1990's, the Hubble Space Telescope has made major contributions to all areas of astronomy and astrophysics. These vary from the study of nearby planets, the processes of star and planet formation, the stellar and interstellar components of galaxies, the affect massive black holes have on galactic nuclei which harbour them, to the discovery of an unknown form of "dark energy" and much more.

The Lives of Stars

Stars are the most widely known astronomical objects and represent the most fundamental building blocks of galaxies with most of the light and radiation we see in the universe originating in stars. Although they are assumed to be constant and never changing, they are in fact evolving dynamic systems. The processes of star formation and evolution are critical to understanding many features of the universe, including the evolution of galaxies. In particular, the Hubble Space Telescope's ability to probe stars in other galaxies enables scientists to investigate the influence of different environments on the lives of stars. Through its studies of star-forming regions like the Orion nebula (O'Dell & Wen, 1994), one of the brightest nebulae in the sky, it reveals that the Orion nebula was scattered with a large population of young stars surrounded by dense disks of gas and dust. Although the existence of the disks had been concluded from Shu et.al (1987)'s Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Hubble Space Telescope's outstanding image resolution revealed the first true picture of the disks' structures and physical properties. The observed 'proto-planetary disks' are exactly the type of system that astronomers expect will evolve into planetary systems like those hosted by our own Sun and gave strong hints that our Solar System is unlikely to be unique.

In addition, the Hubble Space Telescope also helps us understand the older stars in our galaxy. The spatial resolution, image stability and low background of the telescope allows us to measure the properties of fainter and lower massed stars locked into gravitationally bound orbiting pairs (binary stars) easier. This has advanced our understanding of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs, for example, identifying the earliest brown dwarf binaries (Martin et.al, 1999).

The Hubble Space Telescope has also revolutionised the study of globular clusters as globular clusters are so dense with the stars packed so tightly together that it is impossible to separate one from another with ground-based telescopes. With the Hubble Space Telescope however, the measurement of what kind of stars they are composed of, how they evolve and how