People have been fascinated by the stars and space for centuries, but it has only been in the last half of the twentieth century that we have been able to explore space from above the Earth's atmosphere.
1 a) When was the Hubble Space Telescope launched? b) What three problems are described in the articles about the telescope, and how were they to be corrected? c) What did astronomers hope to see once the problems were corrected ? d) What pollutants in the atmosphere restrict the effectiveness of optical telescopes on Earth? e) What sort of telescopes on Earth would not be affected by atmospheric pollution?
2 a) What did the Hubble Telescope discover on Jupiter's moon? b) What led scientists to sear ch for this? c) Name two other space discoveries mentioned in the articles which were impossible before Hubble was in place.
3 The manned space mission of Apollo 13 in 1970 was perhaps one of the most dramatic so far, and as the article explains it very nearly ended in tragedy. a) Which astronauts made up the crew of Apollo 13? b) What was Apollo 13's mission? c) What happened to make the astronauts abort the mission?
