The Hubble Space Telescope is so far our largest window into the Universe and although its successor James Webb has already been launched and is expected to be ready in the coming months, Hubble remains the largest observer of the cosmos. In his career of more than three decades, he has discovered amazing things, but it seems that he wants to retire with the highest honors, since NASA has announced an unprecedented discovery made by Hubble and will announce it very soon.
A before and after Hubble
Since its launch on April 24, 1990, Hubble has carried with it humanity’s hopes for a better understanding of the Universe in which we live. And it has fulfilled expectations, since in more than three decades of service it has helped to discover current facts for science. This observer is not only limited to issuing the most beautiful cosmic photographs, but thanks to the data that he is capable of collecting, the understanding of the Universe has been expanded with his help.
Thanks to Hubble we know today that the Universe has an age of 13.787 ± 0.020 billion years, a figure that without the telescope could not have been stipulated with such precision. But this is just one of the many discoveries that have been made with the help of Hubble, another example is that thanks to it, images of a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing were captured for the first time. These are structures formed by light that once again confirmed Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and gave way to the formulation of the concept of dark matter.
Black holes are another piece of the puzzle that the space telescope has helped to put into place, showing us that there is a supermassive hole at the center of all known galaxies. In addition to capturing the first images of the gases that surround black holes and thanks to which, it has been possible to determine their mass.
An unprecedented discovery
But it seems that Hubble has not finished giving us great scientific conjunctures, since through an official statement on its website, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced that it has reserved a great discovery made by the space telescope that will give to know on March 30. According to the NASA message, it is not just any discovery, but one worthy of the science books and that will be announced very soon. And although he did not give more details about the finding, he made it very clear that it will change our perception of the Universe.
The last time an announcement of this type was made, the space agency announced the presence of water on the Moon, which changed our way of looking for life on other celestial bodies, since it was no longer considered a biological indicator. This is why scientists around the world are waiting to learn about Hubble’s unprecedented discovery.
It might interest you