The day the Hubble Space Telescope was taken to space – level 3

24-04-1990

On April 24, 1990, a spacecraft took off from Florida. It carried a valuable object – the Hubble Space Telescope. The astronauts put it into Earth’s orbit at an altitude of 600 kilometers. The telescope was designed to take beautiful pictures of stars, planets, and galaxies.

A month later there was a shock. The first test pictures from the telescope were blurred. The quality of the pictures was very bad. The scientists found out that the telescope mirror was done incorrectly. The error was extremely small but still crucial.

The scientists eventually found a way to solve the problem. They decided to put special instruments on the telescope that would correct the error. In December 1993, astronauts implemented the instruments and the telescope began to function correctly.

As it was located outside the Earth’s atmosphere, the telescope was able to take very sharp pictures. Many of them were very beautiful.

Difficult words: spacecraft (a vehicle that is able to travel in space), orbit (a way traveled by an object around the Earth), altitude (the height of an object above the sea), blurred (not very clear so the shapes are not seen properly), crucial (extremely important), as (because).

What were the special instruments put on the telescope to correct the error in the mirror?

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