Documental Exploración espacial sin límites - Los telescopios espaciales
Los telescopios espaciales que orbitan por encima de los efectos distorsionadores de la atmósfera de la Tierra, como el Hubble, han hecho contribuciones increíbles a nuestro conocimiento del universo. Este capítulo de exploración espacial sin límites analiza tanto la evolución como los descubrimientos realizados por los diferentes telescopios espaciales que orbitan alrededor de la tierra.
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00:00Probably the Hubble Space Telescope
00:03has been the most relevant scientific instrument in history so far.
00:07It has changed our understanding of the universe,
00:11but it has also raised new and serious questions
00:15about the nature of matter itself.
00:19Hubble has confirmed the abundance of black holes
00:23and has seen light coming from galaxies
00:27more distant than anything else seen so far.
00:31In addition to its scientific discoveries,
00:35it has offered us impressive images.
00:58Unlimited Space Exploration
01:02Space Telescope
01:06In 1609, Galileo built one of the first telescopes
01:10and soon it was oriented towards the night sky.
01:14The telescope was a powerful tool
01:17that caused a total revaluation of the place of the Earth in the universe.
01:21In 1668, Newton invented the telescope
01:25to eliminate the problem of unequal refraction
01:28of the different wavelengths of light.
01:32The telescope became the favorite design of astronomers
01:36and in 1781, William Herschel used one that he had built
01:40to discover the planet Uranus.
01:44The Newtonian telescope was enlarged to reach immense proportions
01:48and in 1924, it became the first telescope
01:52to use the 2.5-meter Huker telescope
01:55of the Mont Wilson Observatory.
01:58Edwin Hubble realized that the Milky Way was not the universe,
02:02but a mass among innumerable galaxies.
02:06But there was still a problem.
02:10No matter how mathematically perfect a telescope is,
02:14its images are distorted by the Earth's atmosphere
02:19and some wavelengths cannot reach the surface.
02:23In 1946, the astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer
02:26proposed a telescope in orbit beyond the Earth's atmosphere.
02:30His plan was impossible with the technology of the time,
02:34but in 1966, NASA began to launch
02:37a series of astronomical observatories in orbit.
02:42Only two were successful,
02:45but the telescopes in low Earth orbit
02:48were the first to see the night skies
02:51in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum.
02:54In the 1970s, plans were drawn
02:57to create a large telescope in orbit,
03:00but it had to receive periodic visits
03:03from maintenance teams,
03:06something that would be possible
03:09when the spacecraft was put into service.
03:15The design required a 2.4-meter primary mirror,
03:19whose characteristics allowed to capture
03:22part of the ultraviolet spectrum.
03:28Known at first as the Great Space Telescope,
03:31its launch was scheduled for 1979,
03:34but delays in its construction caused several delays
03:38and the Challenger disaster caused more delays.
03:43In 1983, it was baptized as Hubble Space Telescope,
03:47in honor of the man who confirmed
03:50that the universe was expanding.
03:55In April 1990, Hubble was finally ready for launch.
04:00Sound suppression system activated by water.
04:0413 seconds.
04:0710 seconds.
04:09Main engine on.
04:11Main engine on.
04:136 seconds.
04:145, 4, 3, 2, 1.
04:17And takeoff of the spacecraft Discovery
04:20with the Hubble Space Telescope,
04:23our window to the universe.
04:25Hubble has a unique relationship with the spacecraft,
04:28which would visit the telescope again
04:31on five different occasions,
04:33but no one knew how vital those missions would be.
04:38To transport the Hubble,
04:40the Discovery transporter set a new altitude record
04:43exceeding 600 kilometers.
04:45The separation of the telescope was a routine operation.
04:50Several weeks of methodical checks were necessary
04:53of the control and communications systems of the Hubble
04:56before the astronomers who worked
04:58at the Scientific Institute of the Space Telescope in Baltimore
05:01could see the first images of the Hubble.
05:05The results were disappointing.
05:08The images were blurry.
05:10The telescope mirror had been polished with precision,
05:13but in an incorrect way.
05:15During its manufacture,
05:17a test instrument had been trusted
05:19incorrectly assembled,
05:21which no one had verified.
05:24Soon a solution was proposed.
05:26The understanding of the error
05:28allowed to install a correction device in the telescope.
05:32A series of small mirrors
05:34would compensate for the defect of the primary mirror.
05:37It was called COSTAR,
05:39another of the clumsy nicknames
05:41devised by NASA.
05:43Astronauts began training
05:45for the task of installing the COSTAR with precision.
05:48They would make room for it
05:50by discharging the high-speed photometer.
05:54In addition to correcting the optics,
05:56other modifications were put in motion.
05:59A new wide-angle planetary camera would be installed,
06:02since the original had been obsolete.
06:05The solar panels of the telescope would be replaced.
06:08A new electronic processor
06:10and new magnetometers would be installed,
06:13and two gyroscopes would be replaced.
06:18Ten, nine.
06:20Main engines on.
06:23Four, three,
06:25two, one, zero.
06:28And we have liftoff.
06:30Liftoff of the Endeavour spacecraft
06:32on a maintenance mission
06:34of the Hubble Space Telescope.
06:36In December 1993,
06:38the mission to repair the Hubble finally began.
06:42Alaveo program.
06:46The Endeavour took three days to reach the Hubble,
06:49and from the beginning it was clear
06:51that it had damaged a solar panel.
06:55The telescope needed a lot of work,
06:57and had scheduled five spacewalks.
07:00First, the robotic arm of the transporter
07:03attached to the Hubble
07:05so that it remained stable while working.
07:09Two teams of two astronauts would share the tasks.
07:14They carried out the assigned tasks for five days.
07:17Meanwhile, the Space Telescope Operations Control Center
07:21monitored the operation of the Hubble
07:24as each new component was activated.
07:28Most of the replaced parts
07:30were stored in the cargo module
07:32for its transport to Earth,
07:34with the exception of the damaged solar panel,
07:37which remained in the space.
07:40The five spacewalks went according to plan.
07:43The only important problem
07:45was the difficulty in closing the doors of the telescope.
07:51During the ninth day of the mission,
07:53the Hubble was released.
07:55The Earth controllers would have another month
07:58to fully check the telescope's new systems.
08:06The Hubble was repaired in December 1993,
08:10but the Earth technicians would take about two months
08:13to carry out a complex series of optical alignments
08:16before being able to ensure
08:18that the telescope worked properly.
08:24When the astronomers were finally able to see
08:26the quality of the results,
08:28they were speechless.
08:32The repair mission had been a success.
08:38With a new and powerful tool at their disposal,
08:41the Astronomers of the Space Telescope Scientific Institute
08:44began to approach
08:46an overwhelming list of deadlines
08:48to work with the Hubble.
08:51In March 1993,
08:53a comet orbiting Jupiter was discovered.
08:56Its trajectory suggested
08:58that it had been captured by Jupiter's gravity recently
09:01and that it would soon collide with the planet.
09:06No one had ever seen a collision between objects
09:09within the solar system,
09:11and there was no consensus
09:13about how visible the impact would be.
09:16The Hubble soon captured this image
09:19of a chain of fragments.
09:21The comet Shumeyka-Ledhi 9
09:24had been destroyed by Jupiter's gravity.
09:27The fragments varied in size,
09:30from several hundred metres to several kilometres in diameter.
09:33For six days in July 1994,
09:36the Hubble observed how the fragments collided
09:39with Jupiter's non-illuminated face.
09:41As the planet rotated,
09:43the impact region showed a series of black swirls.
09:49Some of the dark shadows were as large as the Earth,
09:52and continued in Jupiter's atmosphere for months.
09:55The Hubble spectral analysis
09:58revealed diatomic sulfur and carbon disulfide.
10:01They had never been found on Jupiter,
10:04but the amounts detected were excessive
10:07to have reached the comet.
10:09They had been elevated from the interior of the planet,
10:13The scientists learned a lot from the impacts,
10:16but their observations were about to fail.
10:19A few days before the first impact,
10:22the Hubble began to function unpredictably,
10:25and then it entered safe mode.
10:28It did not execute any of the instructions.
10:33The technicians suspected it had a memory problem,
10:36and took measures to use a new one
10:39installed in the recent maintenance mission.
10:42Things began to improve,
10:45until the spacecraft reported that it was turning towards the Sun.
10:48It seemed that two gyroscopes had failed,
10:51and the situation had deteriorated drastically.
10:54They traced the problem to a counter
10:57that had run out of numbers to count.
11:00The problem was understood and solved quickly.
11:03The incident shook the company,
11:06and the engineers still had to learn how to operate with the new hardware.
11:09Although the Hubble works like a telescope,
11:12it is also a spacecraft that must be controlled with extreme precision.
11:15Unlike other spacecrafts, it lacks propellers.
11:18The chemical residues of some rocket engines
11:21would quickly contaminate the precision optics.
11:24It is also a spacecraft that does not have a propeller.
11:27It is a spacecraft that does not have a propeller.
11:30It is a spacecraft that does not have a propeller.
11:33The Hubble can move by means of four reaction wheels.
11:36When they rotate, the telescope rotates in the opposite direction.
11:39Each has a mass of 45 kilos,
11:42and is controlled by the telescope's computer.
11:45Combining the three-wheel rotation
11:48allows the telescope to point precisely in any direction.
11:51The Hubble can move by means of four reaction wheels.
11:54Each has a mass of 45 kilos,
11:57and is controlled by the telescope's computer.
12:01They are placed at an angle and coupled together
12:04around the center of gravity of the Hubble.
12:10In 1997, during the second mounted vision of the spacecraft,
12:13one of the reaction wheels was replaced
12:16it had experienced an electrical failure.
12:19To keep the Hubble oriented with precision,
12:22three manual guided sensors located at the back of the telescope
12:25captures and produces LEDs.
12:28capture the brightness of certain stars.
12:36The Hubble only needs two guidance sensors to accurately point.
12:40They are so sensitive that they can detect the oscillation of the movement of the closest stars.
12:47The third vital aspect of the telescope's orientation system
12:51is its ability to detect the speed and direction of its movement.
12:55The Hubble has six gyroscopes that register its orientation.
12:59They are crucial for orienting the telescope in a new direction.
13:05The gyroscopes rotate at 19,200 revolutions per minute
13:09and wear out.
13:11That's why it has six.
13:13The Hubble was designed to work properly only with three.
13:17Thanks to new algorithms,
13:19the Hubble can currently point with only two gyroscopes,
13:22although with less precision.
13:24It works to allow it to operate at a lower capacity
13:27with only one gyroscope.
13:33The precision of the Hubble is such
13:35that it can point with a margin less than two millionths of a degree.
13:40That ability to concentrate in a specific region of the sky for a long time
13:44allowed astronomers to make a unique observation.
13:49For ten days in 1995,
13:51the Hubble pointed to a small empty region of the sky
13:54near the constellation Osa Major.
14:00Some considered it an absurd way
14:02to waste valuable observation time.
14:07But the results surprised the whole world.
14:12That supposed empty region of the sky
14:14was full of galaxies of irregular shapes.
14:19Some were up to 13 billion years old.
14:23The Hubble had looked back in time
14:25to observe the formation of new galaxies
14:28in a variety of shapes never seen near the Milky Way.
14:34The image would become known as the Hubble Deep Field.
14:38It was the first of a series of similar explorations
14:41of regions of the sky where nothing had been seen until then.
14:46The animators have added depth to these images
14:49using a spectral information known as the red run,
14:53which indicates the distance from an object to the Earth.
14:56It was a totally new field of astronomy
14:59and one of the reasons why the Hubble was built.
15:03But the space telescope was already suffering design limitations.
15:08The engineers began to work on devices
15:10that would improve the performance of the telescope
15:13in the region of the near infrared spectrum.
15:16They would be installed during the next maintenance mission,
15:19together with updated support equipment,
15:22such as a solid-state recorder
15:24that would replace the original tape recorder.
15:28However, even at this early stage of Hubble's life,
15:32astronomers began to see its limitations.
15:35The distant galaxies he had seen
15:37were approaching the limit of his vision
15:39in the extreme infrared spectrum.
15:43Despite the improvements,
15:45the telescope could not remain cold enough
15:47to observe the increases in the wavelength
15:50from the red run,
15:52which reveal very ancient and very distant objects.
15:57The plans for a new, larger telescope were drawn up,
16:00known as the Next Generation Space Telescope,
16:04which could explore the most distant regions of the universe.
16:08But there were still many things
16:10that Hubble could do better than any other telescope,
16:13and there seemed to be no reason
16:15for it not to continue to be improved with the latest technology
16:18as long as it was available.
16:23In early 1997,
16:25the spacecraft Discovery visited Hubble
16:28on a second maintenance mission.
16:30The astronauts installed new instruments
16:32to improve their reach in the infrared.
16:36In 1999, Discovery visited Hubble again.
16:40They had to advance the mission
16:42because four of the gyroscopes had failed,
16:44and the telescope had entered safe mode.
16:58In 2002, Columbia took off with a new instrument,
17:01the Advanced Tracking Camera.
17:04It would replace the Tenuous Objects Camera,
17:07the last of Hubble's original instruments.
17:10When Columbia moved away from it,
17:13Hubble was once again in perfect condition.
17:18Less than a year later,
17:20while finishing its next mission,
17:22Columbia caught fire during its re-entry.
17:25Part of its foam insulation had come off
17:28during the launch, damaging its thermal protection.
17:31After an exhaustive search for remains
17:34and a thorough investigation,
17:36it was decided that the transborder system was aging.
17:40It would come to an end once the International Space Station was finished.
17:44All other missions were cancelled.
17:49For the Hubble Space Telescope,
17:51that was equivalent to a death sentence.
17:55But Hubble had friends among the most powerful.
17:58The beauty of the images of the telescope
18:01achieved great popularity,
18:03and some very important senators
18:05launched a campaign to undertake
18:07a last maintenance mission.
18:09After a change of administration at NASA,
18:12a last flight of the transborder to Hubble was scheduled,
18:15and they began working on a re-adaptation
18:18of the operating systems.
18:20New precise guidance sensors would be installed,
18:23all gyroscopes would be replaced,
18:26and a new set of batteries would replace
18:29the original ones that Hubble continued to use.
18:32A power supply had failed inside the image spectrogram,
18:35and training began to open the unit
18:38and replace a plate with a new one.
18:41The first test was carried out by the Hubble Space Telescope,
18:45and it was a success.
18:47The transborder now had to operate with a back-up,
18:50and because the Atlantis could not reach
18:53the International Space Station from Hubble's orbit,
18:56the transborder at Debar was prepared for a rescue mission.
19:03On May 11, 2009, the Atlantis was launched
19:06from the Hubble Space Telescope.
19:09The mission was a success,
19:11and the Hubble Space Telescope
19:14On May 11, 2009, the Atlantis was on the NASA's 39A platform,
19:19ready for the last maintenance mission of Hubble.
19:24Take-off of the Atlantis space transborder,
19:27the last visit to improve Hubble's vision
19:30of the deepest greatness of our universe.
19:34It would be the most complex of the maintenance missions.
19:37It had to offer the telescope in orbit the longest life possible.
19:40The 14-day operation went according to plan.
19:43When problems arose, they were resolved,
19:46and Hubble became the best telescope in history.
20:05On Earth, the astronomers of the Space Telescope's scientific institute
20:08were waiting for the first images
20:11of Hubble's new and most sensitive instruments.
20:14The telescope can operate more efficiently,
20:17and needs less observation time than previous incarnations.
20:23The team hurried to disclose examples of the images of a new generation.
20:27In the Eagle Nebula, the creation pyramids,
20:30thousands of light-years from Earth.
20:33Immense clouds of hydrogen and dust are giving rise to new stars.
20:37The five galaxies of the Quintet of Stephan,
20:40in the Pegasus constellation.
20:43Four of them are colliding.
20:46At 16,000 light-years from Earth,
20:49Omega Centauri, in the Centauri constellation,
20:52is a globular cluster.
20:55Here, the presence of a new generation of stars
20:58is so dense that there is only a tenth of a light-year between them.
21:07Although Hubble has been expanding its list of discoveries,
21:10everyone understands that without maintenance,
21:13at some point the telescope will die.
21:18That slow death has already begun,
21:21and it is the gyroscopes that are failing.
21:24The engineers have acted cautiously,
21:27they operate with only three gyroscopes,
21:30and they keep the other three as spare parts.
21:33In mid-2018, three of the units had stopped working.
21:36When the last of the three reserve gyroscopes was activated,
21:39it showed failures,
21:42and all scientific operations of the telescope were suspended.
21:45After modifying the energy received by the unit,
21:48an equivalent measure to turn it off and on again,
21:51it regained its normal functioning.
21:54As more gyroscopes fail,
21:57the telescope will use its star tracers
22:00as a support to point with precision.
22:03It is expected that Hubble will continue to operate
22:06well into the 2020s.
22:09By then, a new space telescope should already be in orbit.
22:12The next-generation space telescope
22:15is now called the James Webb Space Telescope.
22:18It bears the name of NASA's administrator
22:21during the Apollo stage.
22:24The telescope is finished,
22:27and is being subjected to exhaustive controls
22:30before its launch.
22:33It has a giant mirror of 18 hexagonal segments
22:36that will travel folded until its deployment in orbit.
22:39Compared to Hubble, it is huge,
22:42but the total weight of the spacecraft
22:45is less than that of Hubble.
22:48NASA built the Webb Space Telescope
22:51in collaboration with the European and Canadian space agencies,
22:54and it will be launched in an Ariane 5
22:57from the European space port of Kourou in French Guiana.
23:00It will orbit the second point of the Grange-Sol-Tierra,
23:03located 1.5 million kilometers
23:06from the night side of the Earth,
23:09where the telescope can maintain a stable position.
23:15A large and very thin parasol
23:18will protect the James Webb,
23:21allowing the optical components of the telescope
23:24to remain at about 50 Kelvin.
23:27Its operating temperature must be very low
23:30to allow it to penetrate the infrared end of the spectrum.
23:33The instrument of the medium infrared
23:36needs to be even colder.
23:39A cooler that uses helium as a coolant
23:42will allow the sensor to operate at only 7 Kelvin.
23:47The Webb Space Telescope
23:50is designed to take advantage of Hubble's work
23:53and go even further back to the origin of galaxies,
23:56stars and exoplanets.
24:12Transcription by ESO, translation by —