Portal:Spaceflight/Selected article/Week 24 2008

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST; also known colloquially as "the Hubble" or just "Hubble") is a space telescope that was carried into Earth orbit by Space Shuttle Discovery in April 1990. It is named for astronomer Edwin Hubble. Although Hubble was not the first space telescope, it is one of the largest and most versatile, and well known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The HST is a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, and is one of NASA's Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. (more...)