The Hubble European file is already in Spain

Earth from Space Click here From now on, the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) in Villanueva de la Cañada (Madrid) will host the scientific facts of Hubble . Thus, the European Archive Space Telescope will be integrated with databases of other missions of the ESA (European Space Agency), which will be available to researchers worldwide. Since 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope orbit around the Earth and has made ​​some of the greatest astronomical discoveries of our time.

For example, thanks to the Hubble observations now known the composition of the atmospheres of many planets outside our solar system , it is known that the universe's expansion rate has increased over the past million years and identified galaxies formed only 600 million years after the Big Bang . All these observations are possible because Hubble orbits outside the Earth's atmosphere, and thus eliminating the effects of turbulence. In addition, the atmosphere filters out infrared light and ultraviolet, so the images that reach ground-based telescopes are much less clear that they reach a space. The Hubble was also designed to be repaired in orbit by astronauts on missions of service. So far there have been five missions that arrangements have been made ​​and installed new instruments to improve the ability of the telescope. The data collected by Hubble were stored in the ST-ECF (European Coordinating Facility Space Telescope) in Germany. Since its closure in 2010, there continued to file an interim basis until the current transfer to the ESAC, which are also being transferred data from other missions such as Cluster and Ulysses. "The files are an increasingly important part of research in astronomy , "says Martin Kessler, Head of ESA's Science Operations. "By joining them to modern astronomical archives of other ESA missions, such as XMM-Newton, Herschel, Planck and ISO, we can ensure that European researchers have full access and uninterrupted data from Hubble . " Digital files are now possible data to be used again and again for several studies, which multiplies the potential scientific productivity telescope . Both the international astronomical community and the interested public have access to the Hubble observations one year after its completion.