MAN: We copy you down, "Eagle."
(upbeat electronic music)
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Let's play a game.
What's the size of a school bus
that travels 5 miles per second
and takes some of the coolest pictures in the universe?
The answer is right above you.
(electronic music)
Well, about 340 miles above you.
♪ ♪
And it's called Hubble.
So Hubble Space Telescope
is the most important tool that we have
for understanding our universe
and what our place within it is.
(dramatic electronic music)
NARRATOR: From space, Hubble can see planets,
stars, and galaxies
much clearer than telescopes here on the ground,
some as far as 13.4 billion light-years away.
♪ ♪
(camera shutter clicking)
Its images have completely changed
the way we think about viewing the stars.
(electronic warbling)
JOEL: Prior to the launch of Hubble,
when we thought of astronomy and telescopes,
we really thought essentially of telescopes on the ground,
people looking through eyepieces
and things like that.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: No one knows exactly
who invented the first telescope,
but in 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei
was the first to point his own homemade telescope
up toward the stars.
♪ ♪
Then, more than 300 years later,
astronomer Edwin Hubble used a large telescope
to discover entire galaxies.
♪ ♪
The telescope itself is named the Hubble Space Telescope
after Edwin Hubble,
and one of these iconic images
is of Edwin Hubble himself
looking through one of these telescopes
that you could almost mistake for the Hubble
if it were in space.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Instead of an eyepiece,
Hubble uses digital cameras.
(camera shutter clicks)
This camera can record visible light,
ultraviolet light,
and even infrared light.
(enigmatic music)
And scientists look forward to using Hubble
to solve the mysteries of outer space.
♪ ♪
(mechanical whirring)
JASON: Today, demand for the Hubble Space Telescope
is at a record high.
Anybody in the world can write a proposal
to use Hubble, and we're receiving
more than a thousand proposals
every year for scientists
wanting to tackle tough questions
about the universe.
(dramatic music)
Hubble is always doing
the best science that's out there.
♪ ♪
(electronic beeping)
Captioned by Captionmax