To
fix Hubble’s
blurry vision (don't miss this video), NASA sent the shuttle Endeavour on a repair trip in December of 1993. The mission -
STS-61
- was the fifty-ninth time a shuttle was launched into space.
During the eleven-day trip, astronauts set a record of five
space walks, spanning more than
thirty-five hours. They
worked on the
telescope as it was “docked” in the shuttle’s
payload bay.
Astronauts have made several more trips
to Hubble, upgrading,
servicing and then
releasing one of the world’s most treasured
sources of space information. A famous picture of the telescope, as it appears during
its working state, was taken in February, 1997, as the shuttle Discovery neared the orbiting observatory.
After Hubble’s
vision was corrected, it began to send clear electronic images to its base in Maryland. One of the
most stunning is of the
Eagle Nebula
- also
called
M16
- in the
Serpens constellation.
What, exactly, is a nebula? And...what are some of the most notable?