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Can the Hubble Space Telescope distinguish any features on Pluto?
Hubble’s view of tiny, distant Pluto is reminiscent of looking at Mars through a small telescope,” said Stern. The Hubble images reveal much more surface variety on Pluto than on other icy objects in the outer solar system, including Pluto’s oft-cited twin, Neptune’s large moon Triton.
How far can the most powerful telescope on Earth see?
The farthest that Hubble has seen so far is about 10-15 billion light-years away. The farthest area looked at is called the Hubble Deep Field.
Why is the view from the Hubble Space Telescope clearer than the view from a telescope used on the ground?
Earth’s atmosphere alters and blocks the light that comes from space. Hubble orbits above Earth’s atmosphere, which gives it a better view of the universe than telescopes have at ground level.
What telescopes passed Pluto?
Hubble Space Telescope
The distant dwarf planet had been a frigid enigma since its 1930 discovery, remaining a fuzzy blob even in photos captured by the powerful Hubble Space Telescope. But everything changed on July 14, 2015, when NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft zoomed within 7,800 miles (12,550 kilometers) of Pluto’s icy surface.
Can I look through the Hubble telescope?
Unlike on many previous NASA space science missions, anyone can apply for observing time on the Hubble Space Telescope. Potential users must show that their observations can only be accomplished with Hubble’s unique capabilities and are beyond the capabilities of ground-based telescopes.
What is the size of Pluto compared to Earth?
Size and Distance With a radius of 715 miles (1,151 kilometers), Pluto is about 1/6 the width of Earth. If Earth was the size of a nickel, Pluto would be about as big as a popcorn kernel. From an average distance of 3.7 billion miles (5.9 billion kilometers), Pluto is 39 astronomical units away from the Sun.
What will the next Optical Telescope look like?
One of the next ground-based optical telescopes will take the form of the $1.1-billion Giant Magellan Telescope with an 80-foot (24.5-meter) main mirror that consists of seven segments. One 8.4-meter segment would sit in the middle, surrounded by the other six segments that have a unique curved shape not unlike that of a potato chip.
What is the ELT telescope?
The Extremely Large Telescope ( ELT) is an astronomical observatory and the world’s largest optical / near-infrared extremely large telescope now under construction. Part of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) agency, it is located on top of Cerro Armazones in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.
How long does it take sunlight to travel to Pluto?
From this distance, it takes sunlight 5.5 hours to travel from the sun to Pluto. If you were to stand on the surface of Pluto at noon, the sun would be 1/900 the brightness it is here on Earth, or about 300 times as bright as our full moon.