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Article
Hubble Space Telescope
Article By:
Voit, Mark Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland.
Last reviewed:June 2018
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.757724
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The largest visible-light observatory ever placed into space. The Hubble Space Telescope's orbit, some 612 km (380 mi) above Earth's surface (Fig. 1), keeps it beyond almost all of Earth's atmosphere, at a location where its view of the heavens is much clearer than that of ground-based telescopes. The superior view afforded by Hubble's orbit has made the telescope a unique resource for astronomers worldwide and has led to fundamental discoveries about the size, age, and evolution of the universe, the development of galaxies, the birth and death of stars, the rise of solar systems, the properties of exoplanets, and objects in our solar system. See also: Astronomy; Atmosphere; Cosmology; Earth; Solar system; Star; Telescope; Universe
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