Hubble, the Astronomer, the Telescope, and the Science
Event details
| Date | 25.08.2015 |
| Hour | 17:15 › 18:45 |
| Speaker |
Claude Nicollier Claude Nicollier has been a European Space Agency astronaut for nearly 30 years. He first graduated in physics (Bachelor) and astrophysics (Master), and then earned the title of Swiss Air Force pilot, airline pilot and test pilot. He was a member of the first group of ESA astronauts selected in 1978. He was then assigned to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, for Space Shuttle training and flight assignment He took part in 4 space flights, and spent more than 1000 hours in space, including a spacewalk of more than 8 hours duration to install new equipment on the Hubble Space Telescope. Since 2004, he has been a professor at EPFL, teaching at Master’s level, and provides assistance to students on various space related projects. He is also involved in the “Solar Impulse” solar powered aircraft program as Head of Test Flights. |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
This lecture will first address the contributions of Edwin Hubble to astronomy. Between 1920 and 1930, me made some fundamental discoveries in astronomy. He established that the Universe is much bigger that the Milky Way Galaxy, ad that the whole Universe is in a state of expansion. When NASA and ESA decided around 1970 to build and operate a medium size optical space telescope to be carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle and serviceable in the space environment, it was named the Hubble Space Telescope. This made sense because the telescope, with its superior expected image resolution, was going to be used primarily to observe and study the far away regions of the Universe. After its deployment in orbit in April 1990, the telescope was significantly affected by an optical problem that was fixed on Servicing Mission 1 in December 1993. Since that time, and with 4 more Servicing Missions until 2009, the Hubble Space Telescope has been and extraordinarily productive space-based scientific instrument, mainly used to study the early and the late phases of stellar birth, the morphology of galaxies, and very far away objects at the limits of the visible Universe. Its contribution to astronomical knowledge has been, and continues to be very significant.
Practical information
- General public
- Registration required
Organizer
- Lise-Loup Antoniadis
Swiss Space Center
Contact
- Lise-Loup Antoniadis
[email protected]
Swiss Space Center