This is one of the most remarkable machines ever made. It has taken some of the best astronomy pictures ever for almost 20 years. It was serviced by astronauts in 2009 and should therefore continue to operate until at least 2015. The main mirror, which acts like a camera lens, is 2.4 meters across. This size can collect a lot of light and in space this star light is not distorted as it would be on earth. This telescope has helped scientists to confirm that the universe is accelerating but they don't know what is causing this acceleration. This is the great question to answer.
This is one of the pictures taken by the space telescope. It is called the Crab nebula and it shows what is left of a star that blew up in 1054, 955 years ago. We know it was that exact year because the Chinese noticed the star exploding and recorded this in their records. At tat time it was the brightest star in the sky. There are many more beautiful pictures taken by this telescope and you can see them here - http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/
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