00:00 Hubble is the world's first large space-based optical telescope.
00:11 It was named after US astronomer Edwin P. Hubble.
00:15 Since its deployment in 1990, Hubble has sent hundreds of thousands of stunning images of
00:20 the cosmos back to Earth.
00:23 The telescope has revealed faraway solar systems, galaxies and black holes.
00:33 The secret of its success is that it orbits Earth above the atmosphere, thereby enjoying
00:38 a view of the universe ground position telescopes can only dream of.
00:43 It can see objects with an angular size of 0.05 arc seconds.
00:48 This is like standing in Washington DC and being able to spot a firefly as far away as
00:54 Tokyo.
00:56 Hubble is about the size of a large bus.
01:00 It weighs 11 tons.
01:03 Its gyroscopes are so advanced that it can lock onto a target one mile away without deviating
01:08 more than the width of a human hair.
01:11 Hubble's optics, its eyesight, consists of two mirrors.
01:16 Light enters through an aperture door. It then bounces off a primary mirror before encountering
01:21 a second, smaller mirror.
01:23 The light is then directed through a hole in the centre of the primary mirror where
01:27 it reaches the telescope's instruments.
01:29 Data is sent via the transmission antennae to a relay satellite.
01:34 From there, it travels to Earth for analysis.
01:37 Among its many discoveries, Hubble has revealed that the universe is about 13 to 14 billion
01:43 years old.
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