![]() ![]() I didn’t understand then that inspiring such awe was only part of your much larger mission. ![]() But by analyzing the wavelengths of light that different elements emit in space, this man turns dull pictures of our universe into the colorful masterpieces we've come to love. The Hubble Space Telescope can take only black-and-white images. They were something vast, something that couldn’t possibly be real. You were showing us technicolor stalagmites that stretched for light-years tall. When I was in elementary school, I saw your famous “Pillars of Creation” picture, and I remember it shaking my world. Soon after that, I encountered you for the first time. But just in time, you caught the scars in Jupiter’s atmosphere from the cometary impacts-echoes of the ancient collision here that doomed the dinosaurs. With days to go before the comet crash, you still were having software problems (pre-game jitters, perhaps?). They wanted you at full strength to watch, and that winter, astronauts visited you and installed corrective eyewear. Things started to turn around for you in the spring of 1993, when astronomers spotted a shattered comet on course to hit Jupiter. And when you finally launched in 1990, your vision was blurred, thanks to a mirror misshapen by the contractors who built you. You were supposed to cost in the hundreds of millions, but your budget ran over- way over. You were supposed to launch in 1983, but you were delayed. You started as a massive government boondoggle, a punchline on the same kind of late-night talk shows that later celebrated you. Wherever I’ve been in life-an astronomy nerd, a telescope data analyst, and now a science journalist who keeps up with your latest-you’ve got me. In my case, Milky J’s catchphrase proved pretty accurate. One after the next, Milky J would show mind-blowing Hubble pictures, and then he’d shout his catchphrase: “Hubble gotchu!” Here’s the premise: A bombastic guy decked out in Yankees gear named “Milky J” would come out of the audience and get in-your-face excited about, of all things, the Hubble Space Telescope. This essay is an entry in our "Dear Spacecraft" series, where we ask writers, scientists, and astronomy enthusiasts to share why they feel personally connected to robotic space explorers.Ī few years back, a series of segments appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon that astronomy nerds loved. ![]()
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