NASA's Hubble Marks its 200,000th Orbit by Watching Lensed Supernova
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has reached its 200,000th orbit while continuing to observe the distant galaxy cluster MACS J0417. Astronomers are using the telescope to track the reappearance of a supernova to better calculate the expansion rate of the universe.
Why it matters
Hubble's continued operation and its ability to utilize gravitational lensing remain critical for advancing our understanding of cosmic distances and the Hubble Constant.
On Saturday, September 19th , the Hubble Space Telescope completed its 200,000th orbit of Earth, marking yet another milestone for this venerable observatory. In addition, Hubble has traveled more than 8 billion km (5 billion mi) and gathered more than 1.7 million observations of the Universe. And earlier this year, Hubble celebrated its thirty-sixth year of continuous service, exceeding the International Space Station by about nine years.
The observation it took on the day of its 200,000th orbit was characteristic of the very scientific objective for which Hubble was named: measuring the expansion rate of the Universe - aka. the Hubble Constant. The target of these observations, visible in the upper left corner of the image above, was MACS J0417, a massive galaxy cluster located about 4.65 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus.
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