Happy 26th birthday to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope!
In its more-than quarter century of operation, Hubble has broadened our understanding of the cosmos like no instrument before it. Last year, to mark the quarter century occasion, we spoke with Department of Astrophysics Curator Michael Shara, who worked with the Hubble mission during his time at the Space Telescope Science Institute. Dr. Shara and his collaborators have logged over 1,000 hours using the telescope for their work on star clusters, novae, and supernovae.
What did your work with the Hubble Space Telescope entail?
I joined the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSI) in 1982, eight years before the launch of Hubble. I was the project manager for the Guide Star Catalog that is used to target and calibrate the Hubble, and a few years after the telescope was launched, I was responsible for overseeing the peer review committees, which looked over proposals from researchers who wanted to use the telescope.
What was that experience like?
It was amazing to be able to see things coming in astronomy years before they were published. Reading hundreds of proposals and sitting in on deliberations about them was spectacular to watch.
Image: Hubble scientists released this image of the star cluster Westerlund 2 to celebrate the telescope’s anniversary. ©NASA/ESA