Tremane Pullins
Astronomy 1403-1
Professor Mills
9/20/14
Hunting the Edge of Space The new age of space exploration begins with the invention of the telescope. It’s the year 1990 and NASA launches the Hubble Space Telescope. What makes this special is that only I it the first of a new telescope technology, but NASA is certain it will unlock the secrets of the cosmos. Over the course of the video it covers three subjects: What matter our universe is composed of, how it came to be, and whether or not our universe is evolving. Telescopes are important because they take us back in time, and let us know everything we need to know about the universe around us. The most important quality regarding the evolution of telescopes is that every time when decide to look at the universe through a new design of telescope we discover something about our universe. In others words now can see some as stunning as star exploding or observe black holes and all their destruction. We are getting closer to discovering the secrets of the universe. It’s now 2010 and 20 years after the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. Now scientists all around the world are pushing even harder to discover the secrets of the cosmos. It important to look back to where it all began. When did the race to discover the secrets of the universe begin? This video covers the 400 years of discoveries made because of the telescope. The importance of the telescope since its invention is that it’s helped us to somewhat understand our origin in the universe. And every time we invent a new telescope we gain the potential to learn something knew from the universe around us. Now that we have much more powerful telescopes such as the Binocular Telescope, it won’t be long until we discover our origins. Standing at a whopping eight stories tall the Binocular telescope is one of the most powerful telescopes on the planet. Brandishing 28 ft. mirrors this telescope can collect light that is a million times fainter than any human eye can detect. This was all made possible by a mathematician with a goal. In the year 1609 Galileo began building his own version of a device known as the telescope. It was discovered that using a combination of concave and convex lenses held at the right distance had an intense magnifying effect. This discovery sparked the birth of the telescope. This new invention spread all across Europe and when the news reaches Galileo he sees potential in the new invention. After working on the telescope for a while Galileo finally increases the magnification of the telescope to up eight times its original power. Eventually Galileo seeks to make military use of his enhanced version of the telescope. Eventually the Venetian government buys Galileo’s telescope and used his invention for spotting enemy ships long before they could be seen by the naked eye. It wasn’t until Galileo began looking at the sky did everything change. Before Galileo began using his telescope to view the heavens all that was known was what could be seen with the naked eye. So in contrast all the world knew to exist was the moon, the sun, and billions of stars. Galileo’s fist discovery was that of the moon. Looking at the moon he discovered the moon wasn’t perfect as had been suggested by old cosmology. Instead the moon was riddled with craters and valleys. In conclusion Galileo discovered the moon and Earth weren’t as different as everyone thought. Next Galileo focuses his attention on the planet Jupiter. This leads to the discovery of Jupiter’s satellites. Based on his discoveries Galileo writes and publishes The Starry Messenger listing all of his findings. But this isn’t the end what Galileo will discover next will change the world as we know it. Galileo begins observing Venus and forms the conclusion that Venus revolves around the sun based on Venus’s phases. At the time it was believed that the Earth was the center of the solar system. Galileo challenges not only the Roman Church, but