NOVA: Invisible Universe Revealed

NASA launched one of the most ambitious experiments in the history of astronomy: the Hubble Space Telescope.

In honor of Hubble’s landmark anniversary, NOVA tells the remarkable story of the telescope that forever changed our understanding of the cosmos and our place in it.

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Astronauts replace the Hubble Space Telescope’s Fine Guidance Sensors (FGS) in 1997. The FGS are used to locate and lock onto a target star while science instruments make observations. Each sensor is more than five feet wide and three feet long, and weighs 485 pounds. The telescope’s pointing accuracy and stability depend heavily on the Fine Guidance Sensors.

Courtesy of NASA

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The Hubble Space Telescope in a picture snapped by a Servicing Mission 4 crew member just after the Space Shuttle Atlantis captured Hubble with its robotic arm on May 13, 2009, beginning the mission to upgrade and repair the telescope.

Courtesy of NASA

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Astronaut during second servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble has been upgraded five times over its 25-year-lifetime.

Courtesy of NASA

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The Space Shuttle Atlantis moves away from Hubble after the telescope’s release on May 19, 2009 concluded Servicing Mission 4. The Soft Capture Mechanism, a ring that a future robotic mission can grapple in order to de-orbit the telescope, is visible in the center.

Courtesy of NASA

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This is a mosaic image, one of the largest ever taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of the Crab Nebula, a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly, Native Americans.

Courtesy of NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)

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NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught two clusters full of massive stars that may be in the early stages of merging. The 30 Doradus Nebula is 170,000 light-years from Earth. What at first was thought to be only one cluster in the core of the massive star-forming region 30 Doradus has been found to be a composite of two clusters that differ in age by about one million years.

Courtesy of NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

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This is the 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth - and death - is taking place. The fantasy-like landscape of the nebula is sculpted by the action of outflowing winds and scorching ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars that inhabit this inferno. In the process, these stars are shredding the surrounding material that is the last vestige of the giant cloud from which the stars were born.

Courtesy of NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

But amazingly, when the telescope first sent images back to earth, it seemed that the entire project was a massive failure; a one-millimeter engineering blunder had turned the billion-dollar telescope into an object of ridicule.

It fell to five heroic astronauts in a daring mission to return Hubble to the cutting edge of science.

NOVA hears from the scientists and engineers on the front line who tell the amazing Hubble story as never before.

This single telescope has helped astronomers pinpoint the age of the universe, revealed the birthplace of stars and planets, advanced our understanding of dark energy and cosmic expansion, and uncovered black holes lurking at the heart of galaxies.

For more than a generation, Hubble’s stunning images have brought the beauty of the heavens to millions, revealing a cosmos richer and more wondrous than we ever imagined.

Join NOVA for the story of this magnificent machine and its astonishing discoveries.

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"Follow the historic rescue of Hubble—the space telescope that unveiled the cosmos. Airing April 22

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