NEW YORK: It has been a quarter century since a satellite with Colorado roots opened the eyes of mankind to the future of space and the origins of the universe.
In the space community, leaders say no prior piece of hardware has accomplished more than the once nearsighted and sometimes wobbly Hubble Telescope.
“There is no doubt it was a game changer,” said Geoff McHarg, who heads the Air Force Academy’s space physics and atmospheric research center.
Since 1990, Hubble has shown the world how stars are born, how the universe is filled with billions of galaxies and how the Big Bang still echoes. It may be the key to finding Earth-like planets circling distant stars.
“It has directly imaged some exo-planets,” said Devin Della-Rose, who heads astronomical research at the academy.
Stargazing was centuries old when Hubble hit the scene, but Earth-bound astronomers then and now battled clouds and atmospheric distortion to get a glimpse of space.
