The most incredible facts about the Hubble telescope. The best galaxy images from the Hubble Orbital Telescope

Space hubble telescope(named after Edwin Hubble) is an autonomous observatory in Earth orbit, a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency. In space, telescopes are placed in order to detect electromagnetic radiation in ranges that the earth's atmosphere does not transmit. Hubble has operated for almost 15 years (since 1990) and continues to operate (although the main mission has been completed and is being continued by Hubble's colleagues - Spitzer and Kepler, launched in 2003 and 2009, respectively). A project of colossal significance, with the help of which countless theories were tested and a huge number of discoveries were made. Maps of Pluto and Eris, high-quality images of comets, confirmation of the hypothesis of the isotropy of the Universe, the discovery of a new satellite of Neptune - Hubble brought so much data that their study continues and continues.

At the end of 2018, the OSIRIS-Rex space probe entered orbit of the asteroid Bennu and revealed interesting features about its structure. It would seem that with such proximity of the device, all new discoveries should be made only with the help of its on-board equipment, but no. Researchers discovered that the asteroid's rotation speed is constantly increasing - this feature was recorded not by a probe, but by ground-based telescopes and the Hubble Observatory. After this discovery, researchers had new questions and assumptions.

There are three objects in Earth’s orbit that even people far from astronomy and cosmonautics know about: the Moon, the International Space station and the Hubble Space Telescope. The latter is eight years older than the ISS and has seen Orbital Station"World". Many people think of it as just a big camera in space. Reality is A little more complicated, it’s not for nothing that people who work with this unique device respectfully call it a celestial observatory.

A lot of pictures!

The history of Hubble's construction is one of constant overcoming difficulties, the struggle for funding and the search for solutions to unforeseen situations. Hubble's role in science is priceless. Impossible to compose full list discoveries in astronomy and related areas made thanks to telescope images, so many works refer to the information received by it. Nevertheless, official statistics speaks of almost 15 thousand publications.

Story

The idea of ​​placing a telescope in orbit arose almost a hundred years ago. The scientific justification for the importance of building such a telescope was published in the form of an article by astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer in 1946. In 1965, he was made head of the committee of the Academy of Sciences, which determined the objectives of such a project.

In the sixties, it was possible to conduct several successful launches and deliver more than simple devices, and in ’68, NASA gave the green light to Hubble’s predecessor - the LST apparatus, the Large Space Telescope, with a larger mirror diameter - 3 meters versus Hubble’s 2.4 - and the ambitious task of launching it already in ’72, with the help of the then-located in developing space shuttle. But the estimated project estimate turned out to be too expensive, difficulties arose with money, and in 1974 the funding was completely canceled. Active lobbying of the project by astronomers, the involvement of the European Space Agency and simplification of the characteristics approximately to those of Hubble made it possible in 1978 to receive funding from Congress in the amount of ridiculous 36 million dollars in terms of total costs, which today is equal to approximately 137 million.

At the same time, the future telescope was named in honor of Edwin Hubble, an astronomer and cosmologist who confirmed the existence of other galaxies, created the theory of the expansion of the Universe and gave his name not only to the telescope, but also scientific law and size.

The telescope was developed by several companies responsible for different elements, of which the most complex were: the optical system, which was developed by Perkin-Elmer, and spacecraft, which was created by Lockheed. The budget has already grown to $400 million.

Lockheed delayed the creation of the device for three months and exceeded its budget by 30%. If you look at the history of the construction of devices of similar complexity, this is a normal situation. For Perkin-Elmer, things were much worse. The company polished the mirror according to innovative technology until the end of 1981, greatly exceeding budget and damaging relations with NASA. It’s interesting that the blank of the mirror was made by the company Corning, which today produces Gorilla Glass, which is actively used in phones. By the way, Kodak received a contract to manufacture a spare mirror using traditional methods polishing if problems arise with polishing the main mirror. Delays in creating the remaining components slowed down the process so much that it became famous quote from NASA's description of the work schedules that were “uncertain and changing daily.”

The launch became possible only in 1986, but due to the Challenger disaster, shuttle launches were suspended for the duration of modifications.

Hubble was stored piece by piece in special nitrogen-flushed chambers at a cost of six million dollars a month.

As a result, on April 24, 1990, the Discovery shuttle launched into orbit with the telescope. At this point, $2.5 billion had been spent on Hubble. Total costs today they are approaching ten billion.

Since launch, several dramatic events involving Hubble have occurred, but the main one happened at the very beginning.

When, after being launched into orbit, the telescope began its work, it turned out that its sharpness was an order of magnitude lower than calculated. Instead of a tenth of an arcsecond, it was a whole second. After several checks, it turned out that the telescope mirror was too flat at the edges: it did not coincide by as much as two micrometers with the calculated one. The aberration resulting from this literally microscopic defect made most planned studies impossible.

A commission was assembled, whose members found the reason: the incredibly accurately calculated mirror had been polished incorrectly. Moreover, even before the launch, the same deviations were shown by the pair of null correctors used in the tests - devices that were responsible for the desired surface curvature. But then they did not trust these readings, relying on the readings of the main null-corrector, which showed correct results and on which the grinding was carried out. And one of the lenses of which, as it turned out, was installed incorrectly.

Human factor.

It was technically impossible to install a new mirror directly in orbit, and lowering the telescope and then bringing it back up again was too expensive. An elegant solution was found.

Yes, the mirror was made incorrectly. But it was done incorrectly with very high precision. The distortion was known, and all that remained was to compensate for it, for which they developed a special correction system COSTAR. It was decided to install it as part of the first expedition to service the telescope. Such an expedition is a complex ten-day operation with astronauts going out to open space. It’s impossible to imagine a more futuristic job, and it’s just maintenance. There were four expeditions in total during the operation of the telescope, with two flights as part of the third.

On December 2, 1993, the space shuttle Endeavor, for which this was the fifth flight, delivered the astronauts to the telescope. They installed Costar and replaced the camera.

Costar corrected the spherical aberration of the mirror, playing the role of the most expensive glasses in history. The optical correction system fulfilled its task until 2009, when the need for it disappeared due to the use of its own corrective optics in all new devices. She gave up precious space in the telescope to the spectrograph and took pride of place in National Museum Aeronautics and Astronautics, after dismantling as part of the fourth Hubble servicing expedition in 2009.

Control

The telescope is controlled and monitored in real time 24/7 from a control center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The center’s tasks are divided into two types: technical (maintenance, management and condition monitoring) and scientific (selection of objects, preparation of tasks and direct data collection). Hubble receives more than 100,000 from Earth every week different teams: These are orbit-correcting instructions and tasks for photographing space objects.

At the MCC, the day is divided into three shifts, each of which is assigned a separate team of three to five people. During expeditions to the telescope itself, the staff increases to several dozen.

By the way, there is a separate website developed by Chris Peet where you can track the position of the celestial observatory. There is also data on other artificial orbital objects:
www.heavens-above.com

Hubble is a busy telescope, but even its busy schedule allows it to help absolutely anyone, even a non-professional astronomer. Every year we receive thousands of applications for booking time from astronomers from different countries. About 20% of applications receive approval from an expert commission and, according to NASA, thanks to international requests, plus or minus 20 thousand observations are carried out annually. All these requests are connected, programmed and sent to Hubble from the same center in Maryland.

Optics

Current set of tools:

NICMOS
Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer
Near-infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer

ACS
Advanced Camera for Surveys
Advanced overview camera

WFC3
Wide Field Camera 3
Wide Angle Camera 3

COS
Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
Ultraviolet spectrograph

STIS
Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph
Recording spectrograph of a space telescope

FGS
Fine Guidance Sensor
Guidance system

Hubble's main optics are made using the Ritchie-Chrétien system. It consists of a round, hyperbolically curved mirror with a diameter of 2.4 m with a hole in the center. This mirror reflects onto a secondary mirror, also of a hyperbolic shape, which reflects a beam suitable for digitization into the central hole of the primary one. All kinds of filters are used to filter out unnecessary parts of the spectrum and highlight the necessary ranges.

Such telescopes use a system of mirrors, not lenses, as in cameras. There are many reasons for this: temperature differences, polishing tolerances, overall dimensions and the lack of beam loss within the lens itself.

The basic optics on Hubble have not changed since the beginning. And the set is diverse different instruments those using it were completely replaced over several service expeditions. Hubble was updated with instrumentation, and during its existence thirteen different instruments worked there. Today he carries six, one of which is in hibernation.

Wide-angle and planetary cameras of the first and second generations, and the Wide-angle camera of the third now, were responsible for photographs in the optical range.

The potential of the first WFPC was never realized due to problems with the mirror. And the expedition of 1993, having installed Kostar, at the same time replaced it with the second version.

The WFPC2 camera had four square sensors, the images from which formed a large square. Almost. One matrix - just a “planetary” one - received an image with a higher magnification, and when the scale was restored, this part of the image captured less than a sixteenth of the total square instead of a quarter, but in a higher resolution. The remaining three matrices were responsible for “wide-angle”. This is why full camera shots look like a square with 3 blocks removed from one corner, and not because of problems with loading files or other problems.

WFPC2 was replaced by WFC3 in 2009. The difference between them is well illustrated by the re-shot Pillars of Creation, about which later.

In addition to the optical and near-infrared range with a wide-angle camera, Hubble sees:

• using the STIS spectrograph in the near and far ultraviolet, as well as from visible to near infrared;
• in the same place using one of the ACS channels, the other channels of which cover a huge frequency range from infrared to ultraviolet;
• weak point sources in the ultraviolet range with the COS spectrograph.

Pictures

Hubble's images are not exactly photographs in the usual sense. A lot of information is not available in the optical range. Many space objects actively emit in other ranges. Hubble is equipped with many devices with a variety of filters that allow them to capture data that astronomers later process and can summarize into a visual image. The richness of colors is provided by different ranges of radiation from stars and particles ionized by them, as well as their reflected light.

There are a lot of photographs, I’ll tell you only about a few of the most exciting ones. All photographs have their own ID, which can be easily found on the Hubble website spacetelescope.org or directly on Google. Many of the pictures are on the site in high resolution, but here I leave screensize versions.

Hubble took his most famous shot on April 1, 1995, without being distracted from smart work on April Fool's Day. These are the Pillars of Creation, so named because stars are formed from these accumulations of gas, and because they resemble them in shape. The picture shows a small piece of the central part of the Eagle Nebula. This nebula is interesting because big stars in its center it was partially dispelled, and even just from the Earth. Such luck allows you to look into the very center of the nebula and, for example, take the famous expressive photograph.

Other telescopes also photographed this region in different ranges, but in optical the Pillars come out most expressively: ionized by the very stars that dispelled part of the nebula, the gas glows in blue, green and red, creating beautiful iridescence.

In 2014, the Pillars were re-shot with updated Hubble equipment: the first version was filmed by the WFPC2 camera, and the second by WFC3.

Rose made of galaxies

ID: heic1107a

Object Arp 273 - nice example communications between galaxies that are close to each other. The asymmetrical shape of the upper one is a consequence of the so-called tidal interactions with the lower one. Together they form a grandiose flower, presented to humanity in 2011.

Magic Galaxy Sombrero

ID: opo0328a

Messier 104 is a majestic galaxy that looks like it was invented and painted in Hollywood. But no, the beautiful one hundred and fourth is located on the southern outskirts of the constellation Virgo. And it is so bright that it is visible even through home telescopes. This beauty posed for Hubble in 2004.

New infrared view of the Horsehead Nebula - Hubble 23rd Anniversary image

ID: heic1307a

In 2013, Hubble re-imaged Barnard 33 in the infrared spectrum. And the gloomy Horsehead Nebula in the constellation Orion, almost opaque and black in the visible range, appeared in a new light. That is, the range.

Before this, Hubble had already photographed it in 2001:

Hubble captures star-forming region S106

ID: heic1118a

S106 is a star-forming region in the constellation Cygnus. The beautiful structure is due to the ejecta of a young star, which is shrouded in donut-shaped dust at the center. This dust curtain has gaps at the top and bottom, through which the material of the star breaks out more actively, forming a shape reminiscent of the famous optical illusion. The photo was taken at the end of 2011.

Cassiopeia A: the colorful aftermath of a star's death

ID: heic0609a

You've probably heard about supernova explosions. And this picture clearly shows one of the scenarios for the future fate of such objects.

The photo from 2006 shows the consequences of the explosion of the star Cassiopeia A, which happened right in our galaxy. A wave of matter scattering from the epicenter, with a complex and detailed structure, is clearly visible.

Hubble image of Arp 142

ID: heic1311a

And again, a picture demonstrating the consequences of the interaction of two galaxies that found themselves close to one another during their Ecumenical journey.

NGC 2936 and 2937 collided and influenced each other. This is already in itself interesting event, but in this case another aspect has been added: the current shape of the galaxies resembles a penguin with an egg, which works as a big plus for the popularity of these galaxies.

In a cute picture from 2013, you can see traces of the collision that took place: for example, the penguin's eye is formed, for the most part, by bodies from the egg galaxy.

Knowing the age of both galaxies, we can finally answer what came first: an egg or a penguin.

A butterfly emerging from the remnants of a star in the planetary nebula NGC 6302

ID: heic0910h

Sometimes gas streams heated to 20 thousand degrees, flying at a speed of almost a million km/h look like the wings of a fragile butterfly, you just need to find the right angle. Hubble didn’t have to look, the nebula NGC 6302 - also called the Butterfly or Beetle nebula - itself turned towards us in the right direction.

Creates these wings dying star of our galaxy in the constellation Skopio. The gas flows get their wing shape again due to the ring of dust around the star. The same dust covers the star itself from us. It is possible that the ring was formed by the star losing matter along the equator at a relatively low rate, and the wings by a more rapid loss from the poles.

The photo was taken in 2009.

Deep Field

There are several Hubble images that have Deep Field in the title. These are frames with a huge multi-day exposure time, showing a small piece of the starry sky. To remove them, I had to very carefully select an area suitable for such exposure. It should not have been blocked by the Earth and the Moon, there should have been no bright objects nearby, and so on. As a result, Deep Field became very useful footage for astronomers, from which they can study the processes of formation of the universe.

The most recent such frame - the Hubble Extreme Deep Field of 2012 - is quite boring to the average eye - this is an unprecedented shooting with a shutter speed of two million seconds (~23 days), showing 5.5 thousand galaxies, the dimmest of which have a brightness of ten billions less than the sensitivity of human vision.

In April 2015, the legendary telescope, named after Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in Earth orbit. No one hides the fact that over the years we had to repeatedly “treat” the device, restore and improve it. However, all the work was not in vain and now even schoolchildren know where the Hubble telescope is located.

This one flies around the entire Earth every ninety minutes at an altitude of about six hundred kilometers above sea level. His main task is to photograph everything that comes into his field of vision. And a lot hits. So, during his work, over 700,000 images were transmitted to Earth. It is difficult to count how many scientific articles and how many discoveries have been made thanks to Hubble!

Space artist

The first successes of the device were not impressive. The pictures came back to Earth blurry and made no impression. This was caused by a defect in the mirror, which, however, was corrected by the astronauts after some time. After the first renovation, several more were carried out. Hubble was improved and equipped with new equipment.

His eye became sharper and sharper. And now, where the famous one is located, there is no more accurate and attentive observer of all the changes that occur in the Universe.

The telescope photographs turn out to be extremely beautiful and artistic. The Universe, as it turned out, has a lot of light and color. In addition, using the shades recorded in the images, scientists were able to identify the chemical substances contained in many formations, newborn stars, and galaxies. There is a giant black hole inside every galaxy, the Universe is constantly accelerating, and we all know this thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990.

The interesting thing is that we managed to look so far away that the birth of new stars became visible at a distance of 6.5 thousand light years. The process is captured in the smallest detail. The photographs are so original that they will blow anyone's mind.

And in honor of this, a symphony concert was even organized. Thus, a telescope in space has greatly expanded the boundaries of human capabilities and once again made it possible to verify our fragility.

Authors and creators

This unique device was developed by the European Space Agency together with NASA. A total of $6 billion has already been spent on it. Initially, the telescope was supposed to be launched into space 4 years earlier, but the Challenger disaster pushed back this deadline. The program for the creation, launch and further maintenance provided for the repair of the device every 5 years.

However, a damaged mirror, due to which the images were initially unclear, led to the idea that repairs would need to be carried out directly in orbit. And in 1993, the mirror was corrected, the device received additional equipment and began to work even better.

In this state of affairs, considering where famous telescope Hubble, and its impeccable work, it will last another 5 years, and maybe more. Only some kind of catastrophe can disable it. Although a replacement for Hubble is already ready. This is a more accurate and sensitive Webb Space Telescope device.

Space Exploration Assistant

Hubble solved the problem of studying electromagnetic radiation. He registers it in infrared radiation. Ground-based telescopes do this too. However, Hubble turned out to be ten times more effective. Because where the Hubble telescope is located there are more opportunities.

Hubble is a fairly small device, its diameter is slightly more than four meters. The solar panels extend 2 meters wide. But the length is 13 meters. With such seemingly small dimensions, the weight of the device is impressive. The entire telescope, excluding equipment, weighs 11 thousand kilograms, and another 1.5 thousand are instruments.

Maintenance of the telescope falls entirely on the shoulders of the astronauts. Previously planned repairs with descent to Earth could only lead to its damage and deformation. A total of 4 spacewalks were carried out to repair the Hubble.

It is simply impossible to evaluate the work that a telescope has done in space. Thanks to him, we see pictures of Pluto, witnessed the collision of Jupiter with the Shoemaker-Levy comet, and know the age of the Universe itself. According to scientists, its age is close to fourteen billion years. In addition, experts confidently declare the homogeneity of the Universe, the acceleration of processes occurring in it, and much more.

April 24, 1990 was launched into Earth orbit Hubble orbital telescope, who over almost a quarter of a century of his existence made many great discoveries that shed light on the Universe, its history and secrets. And today we will talk about this orbital observatory, which has become legendary in our time, its history, as well as about some important discoveries made with its help.

History of creation

The idea of ​​placing a telescope where nothing would interfere with its work appeared in the interwar years in the work of the German engineer Hermann Oberth, but the theoretical justification for this was put forward in 1946 by the American astrophysicist Leyman Spitzer. He was so captivated by the idea that he devoted himself to its implementation. most of his scientific career.

The first orbital telescope was launched by Great Britain in 1962, and by the United States of America in 1966. The successes of these devices finally convinced the world scientific community of the need to build a large space observatory capable of looking even into the very depths of the Universe.

Work on the project that eventually became the Hubble Telescope began in 1970, but for a long time funding was not sufficient for the successful implementation of the idea. There were periods when the American authorities suspended financial flows altogether.

The limbo ended in 1978, when the US Congress allocated $36 million for the creation of the orbital laboratory. At the same time, active work began on the design and construction of the facility, which involved many research centers and technology companies, a total of thirty-two institutions around the world.

Initially, it was planned to launch the telescope into orbit in 1983, then these dates were postponed to 1986. But a disaster space shuttle The Challenger on January 28, 1986 forced another revision of the launch date of the facility. As a result, Hubble launched into space on April 24, 1990 on the Discovery shuttle.

Edwin Hubble

Already in the early eighties, the projected telescope was named in honor of Edwin Powell Hubble, the great American astronomer who made a huge contribution to the development of our understanding of what the Universe is, as well as what astronomy and astrophysics of the future should be like.

It was Hubble who proved that there are other galaxies in the Universe besides milky way, and also laid the foundation for the theory of the Expansion of the Universe.

Edwin Hubble died in 1953, but became one of the founders American school astronomy, its most famous representative and symbol. It is not for nothing that not only the telescope, but also the asteroid is named after this great scientist.

The most significant discoveries of the Hubble telescope

In the nineties of the twentieth century, the Hubble telescope became one of the most famous man-made objects mentioned in the press. Photographs taken by this orbital observatory were printed on the front pages and covers of not only scientific and popular science magazines, but also the regular press, including yellow newspapers.

The discoveries made with the help of Hubble significantly revolutionized and expanded the human understanding of the Universe and continue to do so to this day.

The telescope photographed and sent back to Earth more than a million high-resolution images, allowing one to peer into depths of the Universe that would otherwise be impossible to reach.

One of the first reasons for the media to start talking about the Hubble telescope was its photographs of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which collided with Jupiter in July 1994. About a year before the fall, while observing this object, the orbital observatory recorded its division into several dozen parts, which then fell over the course of a week onto the surface of the giant planet.

The size of Hubble (mirror diameter is 2.4 meters) allows it to conduct research in a wide variety of areas of astronomy and astrophysics. For example, it was used to take pictures of exoplanets (planets located beyond solar system), watch the agony of old stars and the birth of new ones, find mysterious black holes, explore the history of the Universe, and also check current scientific theories, confirming or refuting them.

Modernization

Despite the launch of other orbital telescopes, Hubble continues to be the main instrument of stargazers of our time, constantly supplying them with new information from the most remote corners of the Universe.

However, over time, problems began to arise in the operation of Hubble. For example, already in the first week of operation of the telescope, it turned out that its main mirror had a defect that did not allow achieving the expected sharpness of the images. So we had to install an optical correction system on the object directly in orbit, consisting of two external mirrors.

To repair and modernize the Hubble orbital observatory, four expeditions were carried out to it, during which new equipment was installed on the telescope - cameras, mirrors, solar panels and other devices to improve the operation of the system and expand the scope of the observatory.

Future

After the last upgrade in 2009, it was decided that the Hubble telescope will remain in orbit until 2014, when it will be replaced by a new space observatory, the James Webb. But now it is already known that the operational life of the facility will be extended at least until 2018, or even 2020.

Analogues have three advantages: the image quality is not affected, due to less light scattering, located objects and range electromagnetic waves from infrared to ultraviolet. All these benefits are fully exploited thanks to complex design Hubble telescope.

The telescope's primary mirror has a diameter of 2.4 m, and the secondary mirror has a diameter of 0.34 m. The distance between them is strictly verified and amounts to 4.9 m. The optical system allows collecting light into a beam with a diameter of 0.05 inches (even at the most best telescopes on Earth the circle of dispersion is greater than 0.5 inches). The resolution of the Hubble telescope is 7-10 times greater than that of its analogues on Earth.

With such exposure it is very necessary high degree stabilization and pointing accuracy. This was the main challenge in the design - as a result, a complex combination of sensors, gyroscopes and star guides allows you to maintain focus within 0.007 inches long time(the pointing accuracy is at least 0.01 inches).

There are six main scientific instruments installed on board, which are achievements of scientific thought at the time of the shuttle launch. These are a high Goddard for working in the ultraviolet range, a camera and spectrograph for shooting dim objects, a planetary and wide-angle camera, a high-speed photometer for observing objects with varying brightness, and precision pointing sensors.

To ensure that the system is self-sufficient and does not require power supplies, it is equipped with powerful solar panels, which in turn charge six hydrogen-nickel batteries. All computers rechargeable batteries, telemetry and other systems are located so that they can be easily replaced if necessary.

Video on the topic

Optical instruments have been known since ancient times. Archimedes used lenses to focus light and destroy wooden ships enemy. But telescopes appeared much later, and the reason for this is unknown.

Origins

The system of teachings about optics was created by the Greek scientists Euclid and Aristotle. In essence, optics is the result of studying the structure of the human eye, and the underdevelopment of anatomy in antiquity did not allow the development of optics into a serious science.

In the 13th century, the first glasses appeared based on knowledge of rectilinear rays. They served utilitarian purposes - they helped craftsmen examine small details. It is unlikely that this invention was the result of long research - it could have been pure luck, the discovery that ground glass can have the effect of enlarging an object when approaching the eye.

The English naturalist Bacon wrote about Arab instruments that could, in theory, provide magnification so that stars could be seen at close range. Da Vinci's genius reached such heights that he designed his own glass machines and wrote treatises on photometry. A single-lens telescope, or rather, its drawings and technical documentation, was thought out to the smallest detail by Leonardo, and the genius himself claimed that in this way an increase of 50 times could be achieved. It is unlikely that such a construction had the right to life, but the fact is a fact - the first stone in the foundation of a new direction in science was laid.

The first spotting scope was made in Holland in late XVI- beginning of the 17th century (opinions about exact date today they diverge) by Z. Jansen in Middelburg in the likeness of a certain Italian telescope. This event was officially documented. The Dutch showed considerable skill in the production of spotting scopes. Metzius, Lippershey - their names were preserved in the chronicles, and their products were presented to the court of dukes and kings, for which the craftsmen were rewarded with large sums of money. Who was the first is still unknown to this day. Tools were made from cheap materials, but for practical purposes, not theoretical basis, as it was before.

Galileo Galilei received a professorship at the University of Padua for presenting his prototype telescope to the Doge of Venice. Its authorship leaves no doubt, since the products are still kept in Florentine museums. His telescopes made it possible to achieve a magnification of 30 times, while other masters made telescopes with a magnification of 3 times. He also contributed a practical basis to the doctrine of the heliocentric essence of the solar system, personally observing the planets and stars.

The great astronomer Johannes Kepler, having familiarized himself with Galileo’s invention, compiled a detailed