Hubble telescope in the sky takes photos like a mobile phone

Mobile phone-like technology allows the Hubble telescope to take photos of the stars and planets millions and trillions of kilometres away from the Earth.

Hubble telescope is over 30 years old now. Although it still takes beautiful photos, it has suffered big glitches recently that almost shut it down permanently, but these were then fixed. (AP)

Hubble telescope has been mesmerising humanity with the amazing photos of deep space it takes and keeps sending back to Earth from its perch high above the atmosphere. Hubble telescope has been doing its job for over 30 years since it was launched way back in 1990. It is a technological marvel and has seen Suns being born and others dying. It has seen pieces of comets strike blow-after-blow on the massive gaseous planet, Jupiter. It has also seen galaxies that are trillions of miles away from our Earth and it has dutifully recorded that and sent the same down to Earth for everyone to marvel at. Hubble has even seen Black holes that swallow up everything, including light.

When we talk about telescopes, we think of the old ones that humans put their eye to peer at the skies. However, that is not what Hubble does. It gazes into space and takes photos much like a mobile phone does. Nasa says, "Hubble uses a digital camera. It takes pictures like a cell phone. Then Hubble uses radio waves to send the pictures through the air back to Earth."

Now, Hubble runs on computers, which control each and every aspect of its functioning as directed by instructors in Nasa. Speaking of computers, recently, both its computers crashed and many had pronounced the death of Hubble. However, last ditch efforts to save the telescope paid off when the back up computer came online.

Hubble Telescope size is equal to a large school bus, says Nasa and its weight is that of two elephants.

However, the death of Hubble is surely getting nearer. It has already been fixed 5 times when the old space shuttles flew missions to add various scientific components to it. No more missions are planned.

However, its replacement is being readied by Nasa and it has been named the James Webb Space Telescope. It will not be like the Hubble at all. Nasa says it will not orbit Earth as Hubble does either. It will have an orbit in a spot on the other side of the moon.