Halfway through its 20-year assignment viewing the far reaches of space from its orbit 380 miles above the Earth, the Hubble Telescope has already transformed humans’ grasp of what’s out there in the universe.
“A lot of things we [adults] learned in school have changed fairly dramatically as a result of Hubble,” says Paul Knappenberger, president of Chicago’s Adler Planetarium, where an exhibit on the school-bus-size space telescope opens Saturday.Among many other things, “Hubble has pretty much confirmed that the centers of active galaxies are black holes, with gas and dust and stars falling down into them. And it’s indicated that even our very own Milky Way galaxy has a black hole at its center.” On top of that, Knappenberger says, Hubble has narrowed down the age of the universe to between 12 and 15 billion years old — a much more precise estimate than the pre-Hubble range of 5 to 20 billion years.
At the “Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe” exhibit, which will be at the Adler until Sept. 5, museumgoers at all levels of astronomical knowledge will be able to ponder these cosmic ideas and others, as well as to look at some truly remarkable deep-space photos that Hubble has beamed down to Earth.
One of those photos is of two galaxies colliding. It’s intriguing, but it’s accompanied by two other elements that boost its wow-factor considerably. There’s a video of a computer-generated model of the collision that scientists have created based on that still photo. And there’s a photo of the collision taken previously by an earthbound telescope — by comparison, it’s a blurry mess.
That comparison, Knappenberger says, gets to the point of what Hubble has done for space science. He likens the view from telescopes on Earth to “looking up from the bottom of a swimming pool at somebody standing on the side of the pool.” But Hubble, because it floats above this planet’s atmosphere, “gets our head above water, where we can see more clearly,” he says.
Knappenberger was on the advisory committee that helped develop the Hubble exhibit, which will travel to other cities after its debut at the Adler. He says the challenge was to make a space telescope’s work relevant to all the different kinds of people who would show up at an astronomy museum. The resulting exhibit is something he hopes will impress everybody. Little kids not yet hooked on space will at least enjoy plunging their hands into a pair of astronaut gloves to try threading a nut onto a bolt, simulating real Space Shuttle crewmembers’ struggles when servicing the telescope. Older ones will get a charge out of trying to match before and after photos of colliding galaxies — especially because the payoff for a correct match is watching a supercomputer’s animation of the collision. Other interactive stations dot the exhibit, and there’s also one-fifth scale model of Hubble itself suspended over the heads of visitors. (It’s about 8 feet across; the real thing is 40 feet.)
Children who are into space, and adults, will have the best time looking at some of the photos Hubble has sent back, mounted on lighted panels 5 by 12 feet.
The photos show stars being born, galaxies colliding, a comet crashing into Jupiter, and a region of deep space that before Hubble was seen as a blank spot on the map of the universe. Hubble’s photos have shown that the region actually contains a few thousand galaxies, Knappenberger says. “Hubble has collected some of the most beautiful images of celestial objects ever seen,” he says.
If Hubble beams home any revealing new photos during the exhibit’s stay at the Adler, they’ll be viewable by computer in the exhibit. Just by being there, they’ll highlight the idea that Hubble, the butt of endless jokes in the early 1990s because of some startup bugs that were soon repaired, is still out in space collecting mind-blowing photos of the universe, with up to 10 more years to go.
“Hubble is exploring worlds we’re not likely to get to in our lifetimes,” Knappenberger says. “It’s extending our human senses out into the universe and coming back with all sorts of information for us about this magnificent universe we’re part of.”
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“Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of the Universe” is at the Adler Planetarium from Saturday through Sept. 5.
Admission to the exhibit costs $3 per person in addition to the cost of admission to the museum ($5, or $4 for people over age 65 or under 17). Located at 1300 S. Lake Shore Drive, the planetarium is open daily. For more information, call 312-922-7827 or go to www.adlerplanetarium.org.
