2010 Db15000 Lyman Spitzer, Hubble Telescope 20th Anniversary sheet of 6

Mint Stamp Tributes
To the Hubble Telescope

While the Hubble Telescope is named after famed astronomer Edwin Hubble, it was Lyman Spitzer, Jr. who made the telescope a reality.  In the 1940s, he wrote a paper suggesting a space observatory, and spent the next 50 years promoting the idea.  NASA approved the project in 1969 and Congress granted funding in 1977.  Construction was delayed multiple times, but the Hubble Telescope was finally launched into space aboard the Discovery on April 24, 1990. 

Hubble is equipped with five scientific instruments: the Wide Field/Planetary Camera, the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph, the Faint Object Camera, the Faint Object Spectrograph and the High Speed Photometer. The huge telescope can “see” the cosmos clearer than land-based telescopes because of its position above Earth’s image-distorting atmosphere. In fact, it’s said that the power is so strong – and the resolution so sharp – that it’s like seeing a pair of fireflies in Tokyo while standing in Maryland. Hubble has proven the existence of black holes, captured a comet’s collision with Jupiter, and taken the first images of Pluto and its satellite, Charon.

This mint sheet features several different images of the telescope, it’s launch in 1990, and the man that campaigned for its creation, Lyman Spitzer.  Add all this great space history to your collection today!