How far did the Hubble Space Telescope go out so far?

Question

The hubble could have went thousands of miles. I am confused.

Answer 1

Well, I am confused by your question.

The Hubble telescope was designed to orbit the Earth and send back high-resolution, deep space pictures. Once it got above the Earth's atmosphere, its field of view was basically unobstructed.


It has taken pictures of galaxies so incredibly distant that it has enhanced our ability to determine the age of the universe relative to the "Big Bang".

I guess you expected it to travel out some distance, huh. Think about it. What good would it do to go out several thousand miles further into space, or even several million miles further out into space, when the targets of observation are vast multiples of light-years away (5.9 trillion miles equals one light-year. And, then, how would we quickly service the telescope if it had a malfunction or breakdown?

Makes more sense to keep it close-by for mainenance.

Answer 2

The Hubble Space Telescope is in a stable elliptical low earth orbit about 366 Miles off the service of the Earth.

Hubble completes one orbit around the Earth (crossing over the same longitude line) every 97 minutes. Its speed is approximately 8 km per second (5 miles per second).

It will probably be de-orbited in the beginning of 2021.

Hubble has picked up galaxies that are 10 billion light years away. This is sort of like saying it has seen that far.

Actually the telescope itself has no limits - but the Universe itself does. Hubble is a medium-sized (2.4 meter) telescope with very sharp optics and very good instruments. This enables the telescope to see very faint objects despite its relatively modest size. According to the theory of Big Bang, the absolute observational limit to telescopes (as we know them today) is a 'sphere' of opaqueness surrounding us positioned approximately 13-14 billion light years away. It is called the 'surface of last scattering', and is also known as the source of the 'microwave background radiation'. Up to 300.000 years after Big Bang, the Universe was totally opaque to light. This means that we know that we (when we look out in the Universe and thus back in time) will never see past, or through, this barrier.

These statement reflect how far out the telescope has gone or can go.

Answer 3

The Hubble telescope is in orbit around the earth at around 600 km (about 360 miles) above the surface. Its not a space probe that was launched from earth to travel a long distance.
It was launched in 1990, and has been in orbit taking amazing images of deep space objects since then.
Its in orbit to keep it close for maintenance and repairs, and to be able to get almost-immediate transmissions from the telescope and to send almost-instant instructions on where to point and what to look at.
It was never built as a deep-space probe (like the Voyagers or Cassini or New Horizons were).

Answer 4

The Hubble telescope is in a stationary orbit high above the Earth, it does not travel. It's ability to focus on distant objects is only limited by the technology used to make it!

Answer 5

Unfortunately putting Hubble out that far would be a bad idea for three very good reasons. 1: The telescope is solar powered. That far out it won't get enough light to power itself. 2: Its data transmission is designed for short range from a few hundred kilometres. From a few billion kilometres the signal would be so weak we'd never be able to receive anything like enough data to get those amazing images we are familiar with. 3: The distance to the Voyager probes is vast in comparison to where it is now, but in comparison to the things it is imaging it is next to nothing. Hubble images things that are thousands of light years away, or even billions in images such as the Deep Field set. Putting it a few billion kilometres out doesn't even put it a millionth of a percent closer to anything it is actually used to image regularly. The difference in images would be un-noticeable, even if we could receive them.

Answer 6

The Hubble Telescope is in orbit around the Earth... How do you think the astronaut can service it if it is somewhere else in the Universe?

Answer 7

About 300 miles, give or take. The distances in space are so vast that moving it out another thousand miles or so would have no visible effect, except removing it from the ideal orbital position around earth (and make repairs harder). It wouldn't really make pictures any more detailed. The only reason it's in space at all is to clear the atmosphere's smog and haze, not get it closer to it's subject.

Answer 8

The Hubble scope is in a stable orbit, it can observe objects that are billions of light years from Earth. I hope this is what you needed to know. Any time you are confused just ask a question.