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Beyond Earth 00:00:06:13,00:00:08:10, The Hubble Space Telescope. 00:00:08:11,00:00:11:09, It is by far the most famous|telescope in history. 00:00:11:10,00:00:12:20, And for good reason. 00:00:12:21,00:00:16:14, Hubble has revolutionised so|many fields in astronomy. 00:00:16:15,00:00:20:01, By modern standards, Hubble's|mirror is actually quite small. 00:00:20:02,00:00:23:01, It only measures about|2.4 metres across. 00:00:23:02,00:00:26:16, But its location is literally|out of this world. 00:00:26:17,00:00:30:09, High above the blurring effects of the|atmosphere, it has an exceptionally 00:00:30:10,00:00:32:15, sharp view of the Universe. 00:00:32:16,00:00:37:09, And what's more, Hubble can see|ultraviolet and near-infrared light. 00:00:37:10,00:00:40:12, This light just cannot be seen by|ground-based telescopes because 00:00:40:13,00:00:43:22, it is blocked by the atmosphere. 00:00:43:23,00:00:47:22, Cameras and spectrographs,|some as big as a telephone booth 00:00:47:23,00:00:52:15, dissect and register the light|from distant cosmic shores. 00:00:52:16,00:00:57:08, Just like any ground-based telescope,|Hubble is upgraded from time to time. 00:00:57:09,00:01:00:19, Spacewalking astronauts carry|out servicing missions. 00:01:00:20,00:01:02:11, Broken parts get refurbished. 00:01:02:12,00:01:05:00, And older instruments get|replaced with newer and 00:01:05:01,00:01:07:20, state-of-the-art technology. 00:01:07:21,00:01:11:07, Hubble has become the powerhouse|of observational astronomy. 00:01:11:08,00:01:15:06, And it has transformed our|understanding of the cosmos. 00:01:17:20,00:01:22:20, With its keen eyesight, Hubble|observed seasonal changes on Mars 00:01:23:22,00:01:26:20, a cometary impact on Jupiter 00:01:28:12,00:01:31:22, an edge-on view of Saturn's rings 00:01:34:22,00:01:38:10, and even the surface of tiny Pluto. 00:01:38:11,00:01:44:08, It revealed the life cycle of stars,|from their very birth and baby days 00:01:44:14,00:01:50:14, in a nursery of dust-laden clouds|of gas, all the way to their final farewell: 00:01:50:15,00:01:55:20, as delicate nebulae, slowly|blown into space by dying stars 00:01:55:22,00:02:02:24, or as titanic supernova explosions|that almost outshine their home galaxy. 00:02:03:00,00:02:06:24, Deep in the Orion Nebula, Hubble even|saw the breeding ground of new 00:02:07:00,00:02:12:02, solar systems: dusty disks around|newborn stars that may soon 00:02:12:02,00:02:14:02, condense into planets. 00:02:14:04,00:02:18:08, The space telescope studied thousands|of individual stars in giant globular 00:02:18:10,00:02:23:24, clusters, the oldest stellar|families in the Universe. 00:02:24:00,00:02:26:08, And galaxies, of course. 00:02:26:10,00:02:29:24, Never before had astronomers|seen so much detail. 00:02:29:24,00:02:36:20, Majestic spirals, absorbing dust|lanes, violent collisions. 00:02:39:00,00:02:43:12, Extremely long exposures of blank|regions of sky even revealed 00:02:43:12,00:02:48:02, thousands of faint galaxies|billions of light-years away. 00:02:48:02,00:02:51:24, Photons that were emitted|when the Universe was still young. 00:02:52:00,00:02:56:10, A window into the distant past,|shedding new light on the 00:02:56:10,00:02:59:14, ever-evolving cosmos. 00:03:00:04,00:03:02:22, Hubble is not the only|telescope in space. 00:03:02:22,00:03:07:20, This is NASA's Spitzer Space|Telescope, launched in August 2003. 00:03:07:22,00:03:11:18, In a way, it is Hubble's|equivalent for the infrared. 00:03:11:18,00:03:15:24, Spitzer has a mirror that is only|85 centimetres across. 00:03:15:24,00:03:19:02, But the telescope is hiding behind|a heat shield that protects 00:03:19:04,00:03:20:12, it from the Sun. 00:03:20:12,00:03:25:04, And its detectors are tucked away|in a dewar filled with liquid helium. 00:03:25:04,00:03:28:02, Here the detectors are cooled|down to just a few degrees 00:03:28:04,00:03:29:20, above absolute zero. 00:03:29:22,00:03:33:14, Making them very very sensitive. 00:03:33:16,00:03:36:18, Spitzer has revealed a dusty Universe. 00:03:36:18,00:03:40:14, Dark, opaque clouds of dust glow|in the infrared when heated 00:03:40:16,00:03:42:14, from within. 00:03:42:14,00:03:46:18, Shock waves from galaxy collisions|sweep up dust in telltale rings 00:03:46:18,00:03:51:12, and tidal features, new sites|for ubiquitous star formation. 00:03:53:12,00:03:57:02, Dust is also produced in the|aftermath of a star's death. 00:03:57:04,00:04:01:02, Spitzer found that planetary nebulae|and supernova remnants are laden 00:04:01:04,00:04:06:08, with dust particles, the prerequisite|building blocks of future planets. 00:04:06:10,00:04:10:02, At other infrared wavelengths, Spitzer|can also see right through a dust 00:04:10:04,00:04:15:18, cloud, revealing the stars|inside, hidden in their dark cores. 00:04:15:20,00:04:18:24, Finally, the space telescope's|spectrographs have studied 00:04:18:24,00:04:22:22, the atmospheres of extrasolar|planets - gas giants like Jupiter 00:04:22:22,00:04:26:22, that race around their parent|stars in just a few days. 00:04:28:16,00:04:30:22, So what about X-rays|and gamma rays? 00:04:30:22,00:04:33:14, Well, they are completely blocked|by the Earth's atmosphere. 00:04:33:16,00:04:37:04, And so without space telescopes,|astronomers would be totally blind 00:04:37:04,00:04:40:02, to these energetic forms|of radiation. 00:04:41:16,00:04:45:02, X-ray and gamma ray space|telescopes reveal the hot 00:04:45:02,00:04:49:20, energetic and violent Universe of|galaxy clusters, black holes 00:04:49:20,00:04:54:02, supernova explosions,|and galaxy collisions. 00:04:56:18,00:04:58:21, They are very hard to build, though. 00:04:58:22,00:05:02:11, Energetic radiation passes right|through a conventional mirror. 00:05:02:12,00:05:07:17, X-rays can only be focused with|nested mirror shells made of pure gold. 00:05:07:18,00:05:11:03, And gamma rays are studied with|sophisticated pinhole cameras 00:05:11:04,00:05:14:14, or stacked scintillators that give|off brief flashes of normal light 00:05:14:15,00:05:17:17, when struck by a|gamma ray photon. 00:05:18:24,00:05:23:03, In the 1990s, NASA operated the|Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. 00:05:23:04,00:05:26:07, At the time, it was the largest|and most massive scientific 00:05:26:08,00:05:27:22, satellite ever launched. 00:05:27:23,00:05:31:03, A fully fledged physics|lab in space. 00:05:31:04,00:05:34:12, In 2008, Compton was|succeeded by GLAST: 00:05:34:13,00:05:38:13, the Gamma Ray Large|Area Space Telescope. 00:05:38:14,00:05:42:03, It will study everything in the|high-energy Universe from dark 00:05:42:04,00:05:44:13, matter to pulsars. 00:05:46:10,00:05:50:09, Meanwhile, astronomers have|two X-ray telescopes in space. 00:05:50:10,00:05:55:10, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory|and ESA's XMM-Newton Observatory 00:05:55:11,00:05:59:12, are both studying the|hottest places in the Universe. 00:06:01:25,00:06:05:17, This is what the sky looks|like with X-ray vision. 00:06:05:18,00:06:10:04, Extended features are clouds of gas,|heated to millions of degrees by 00:06:10:05,00:06:13:17, shock waves in|supernova remnants. 00:06:13:18,00:06:17:24, The bright point sources are X-ray|binaries: neutron stars or 00:06:17:25,00:06:21:16, black holes that suck in matter|from a companion star. 00:06:21:17,00:06:25:07, This hot, infalling gas emits X-rays. 00:06:25:08,00:06:29:14, Likewise, X-ray telescopes reveal|supermassive black holes in 00:06:29:15,00:06:31:19, the cores of distant galaxies. 00:06:31:20,00:06:35:20, Matter that spirals inward gets|hot enough to glow in X-rays 00:06:35:21,00:06:40:04, just before it plunges into the|black hole and out of sight. 00:06:40:05,00:06:44:21, Hot but tenuous gas also fills the|space between individual galaxies 00:06:44:22,00:06:46:08, in a cluster. 00:06:46:09,00:06:50:06, Sometimes, this intracluster gas is|shocked and heated even more 00:06:50:07,00:06:54:12, by colliding and merging|galaxy clusters. 00:06:54:13,00:06:58:19, Even more exciting are gamma|ray bursts, the most energetic 00:06:58:20,00:07:00:15, events in the Universe. 00:07:00:16,00:07:04:23, These are catastrophic terminal|explosions of very massive, rapidly 00:07:04:24,00:07:06:19, spinning stars. 00:07:06:20,00:07:10:19, In less than a second, they release|more energy than the Sun does in 00:07:10:20,00:07:13:19, 10 billion years. 00:07:16:04,00:07:20:04, Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra,|XMM-Newton and GLAST 00:07:20:05,00:07:22:15, are all versatile giants. 00:07:22:16,00:07:25:16, But some space telescopes are much|smaller and have much more 00:07:25:17,00:07:27:06, focused missions. 00:07:27:07,00:07:29:07, Take COROT, for example. 00:07:29:08,00:07:32:22, This French satellite is devoted to|stellar seismology and the study 00:07:32:23,00:07:34:22, of extrasolar planets. 00:07:34:23,00:07:39:06, Or NASA's Swift satellite, a combined|X-ray and gamma ray observatory 00:07:39:07,00:07:43:18, designed to unravel the|mysteries of gamma ray bursts. 00:07:43:19,00:07:48:04, And then there's WMAP, the Wilkinson|Microwave Anisotropy Probe. 00:07:48:05,00:07:51:21, In just over two years in space, it|had already mapped the cosmic 00:07:51:22,00:07:55:07, background radiation to|unprecedented detail. 00:07:55:08,00:07:59:05, WMAP gave cosmologists the best|view yet of one of the earliest 00:07:59:06,00:08:04:17, phases of the Universe,|more than 13 billion years ago. 00:08:04:18,00:08:07:16, Opening up the space frontier has|been one of the most exciting 00:08:07:17,00:08:10:06, developments in the|history of the telescope. 00:08:10:07,00:08:12:19, So what's next?