MAGAZINE OF THE SOCIE TY FOR SCIENCE & THE PUBLIC MAGAZINE OF THE SOCIETY FOR SCIENCE & THE PUBLIC
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Hubble’s birthday marks
astronomical advances
In the January 6, 1990, issue of
Science News, a young writer named
Ron Cowen reported on the impending launch of a new telescope that
would view the heavens from above
the Earth’s atmosphere.
He quoted a prophecy from NASA
astronomer Stephen Maran. “Future
historians may one day look back on the 1990s as the
decade that revolutionized our understanding of the uni-
verse,” Maran predicted. “The Hubble Space Telescope
will be remembered as the instrument that first cracked
open the window.”
Now, two decades after Hubble’s launch, Maran’s status
as a prophet has been securely established (if you allow
a little spillover from the ’90s into the 21st century). The
Hubble telescope indeed opened a new view on the heav-
ens, and its contributions have certainly initiated extensive
revisions in science’s conception of the cosmos.
Before Hubble, cosmologists had only rough ideas of
how old the universe was and how fast it was expanding.
Its age was maybe 10 billion years, or perhaps 15 billion,
or even maybe a little older, the experts guessed. In the
convoluted units used to gauge the universe’s expansion
rate, some authorities argued for a slow 40 or so, while
others insisted on a speed exceeding 90. Thanks largely to
Hubble’s observations (with important input from other
instruments), the universe now is clocked at right about
70 on the expansion scale, and its age is rather precisely
pinpointed at 13.75 billion years.
What’s more, Hubble provided key clues to a surprising acceleration in the cosmic expansion rate, leading
astronomers to surmise the presence of a mysterious dark
energy infusing every stitch of space. Astonished scientists
had to rethink their views on the universe’s history and
ultimate fate.
On Page 16 of this issue, that young writer I mentioned
above, now two decades older, celebrates Hubble’s birthday
with a montage of its most iconic and informative images,
recalling some of the cosmic secrets the telescope has
exposed in its two decades in orbit — all in recognition of
how Hubble’s sharper and deeper images of the contents of
the cosmos have sharpened and deepened humankind’s
insights into the nature of physical existence.
— Tom Siegfried, Editor in Chief
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