Summary
NASA's 25th-anniversary documentary on the Hubble Space Telescope — how it was launched, famously repaired in orbit by spacewalking astronauts after a flawed mirror, and how its images reshaped what we know about the universe.
Viewer safety
All ages
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Discussion
"Hubble25" tells how a telescope in space almost failed — and how astronauts saved it.
- Why did NASA put a telescope above Earth's atmosphere instead of on the ground?
- When Hubble's mirror turned out to be flawed, how did NASA fix a telescope already in orbit?
- What can we learn from pictures of faraway galaxies and stars?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: telescope, orbit, mirror, repair, servicing mission.
Try it: Write down the problem Hubble had and the way NASA solved it. Then describe one test you would run before sending a fix all the way up to space.