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[Music]

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hi i'm ellen stofan also known as dr e

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the john and adrian mars director of the

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smithsonian's national air and space

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museum and i'm thomas serbic and the

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associate administrator for science at

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nasa also known as dr z and we're both

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in our home offices uh just like

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everybody else we're with our families

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and it's kind of a difficult time for

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all of us so we're thinking about people

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out there in the same kind of situation

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but see science never sleeps and we want

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to share amazing stories with you even

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now and thomas we have a great one for

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today because we're coming up on a

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really important anniversary it's the

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30th anniversary of the hubble space

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telescope which launched on april 24th

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1990. so let's start with the science

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impact for me it's kind of about three

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numbers the first number is

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15 000 plus publications to date the

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second one is

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160 terabytes of data and the third

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number is over 12 000 active users and

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and frankly that's just stunning uh

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right ellen

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it really is and and it it's just again

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it's always hard for me to to explain to

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people how much

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hubble changed and when you think back

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across the discoveries it's made it's

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really unbelievable

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and so i think of the fact that hubble

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discovered two of the moons of pluto and

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of course the fact that hubble was

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actually instrumental in discovering a

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number of exoplanets i asked people to

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close their eyes and think about the

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word galaxy and ask them which image did

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you see and you know in nine out of ten

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people everywhere they see a hubble

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image galaxies of the deep exposure the

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andromeda nebula they see the orion

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nebula some of these images that are

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iconic and will forever be how we think

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about the universe but let's switch

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quickly to the people let's talk about

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nancy grace roman did you know her

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you know i never met her but what an

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amazing career and frankly the amount of

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pushback she had every step of her

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career and yet she persevered from the

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fact that when she got hired she got

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hired at a way lower salary than she

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should have to the fact she had to fight

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every step of the way but she knew if we

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could put a telescope above the

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atmosphere

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that what it would discover would change

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the world and she was rife

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for many of us and for the whole

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community she's really considered the

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mother of hubble

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i recently got to hear kathy sullivan

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another amazing woman and of course she

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was the astronaut that was responsible

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for deploying the hubble space telescope

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on that discovery flight that was led by

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charlie bolden she was talking about how

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it was such genius to make that

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telescope serviceable

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by the astronauts i don't think anybody

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thought it would last as long as it has

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you know and of course they didn't know

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the trouble with hubble and the fact

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there was a fundamental flaw in the

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mirror but the brilliance of making that

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accessible by the space shuttle making

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the instruments able to be removed and

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replaced

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that really allowed hubble to triumph

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over incredible challenges

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i think of the times i've gotten to talk

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with john grunsfeld another mutual

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friend of ours an astronaut who was on

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many of the repair missions and as an

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astrophysicist himself

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getting to go up and actually help

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keep this telescope not just alive but

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have it excel to do things like

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really change our view of the universe

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with dark energy dark matter looking at

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black holes at the centers of galaxies i

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i mean the list just goes on and on

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about what hubble has achieved and i

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will say i want to give a huge shout out

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to the team right now and in fact we

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awarded them our our michael collins

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trophy at the air and space museum

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because this amazing achievement they're

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still getting data out of what we might

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say is a slightly elderly telescope with

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a few you know think of it as maybe an

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old person with some creaky joints the

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team just keeps finding ways to make

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that telescope keep going make the data

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keep flowing there are these amazing

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teams that are just really what in my

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opinion exploration is all about yes

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it's about the key ideas it's about

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these other

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individuals that bring their heart and

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soul to bear and make these missions

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happen it's the perseverance and tough

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times and i really want to thank them

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for that and of course thomas right now

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we're also really excited that not only

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are we still going to have hubble but

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we're now actually about to get the next

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great observatory the james webb space

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telescope can you imagine that we have

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this other telescope that is

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in many ways a successor of hubble

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looking at deeper universe with colder

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detectors with technologies the world

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has never seen and and it's getting

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ready right now over there in california

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it's all together as one and next year

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is the year we're going to launch this

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telescope we're so excited thomas you

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know we have actually a bunch of

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questions that have come in from the

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public one of the questions we got was

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we know the universe is expanding but

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why are

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the two galaxies and they were referring

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to the upcoming collision of the milky

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way galaxy with the andromeda galaxy

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don't worry it's not for a long time why

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are these two galaxies converging if

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everything's moving away that's really

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amazing fact the first one yes the

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universe is expanding and frankly that's

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one of the reasons

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hubble space telescope was built

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to measure those expansions at an

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accuracy we now know that we never

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expected we actually learned that the

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expansion is even getting faster that's

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also one of the results in part from

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hubble it is true that those galaxies

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those neighboring galaxies are

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attracting each other and frankly

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they're converging because of gravity

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the same force that keeps us to the

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earth or makes the apple fall is the

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force that makes the milky way and

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andromeda converge so hubble teaches us

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both about the expansion of the entire

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universe but also the convergence of

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those two neighboring galaxies because

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of gravity this is a fun question for

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right now what is the most exciting

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possibility of what we'll learn with the

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james webb space telescope i really do

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believe that one of the most exciting

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parts is to get the atmospheres of

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exoplanets analyzed in new ways

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our hope is to learn about the

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possibilities of these exoplanets to

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harbor life to really have similarities

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to the planets that we have around here

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how would you have answered that

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question ellen same way

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you know for me you know i know and and

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i'm not doing justice to all the amazing

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things that webb is going to do and in

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fact it's going to even look back

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further in the history of the universe

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than hubble's been able to we know

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hubble's been able to help us understand

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that the universe is about 13.75 billion

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years old but because web is a more

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powerful telescope it's actually going

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to be able to see

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back to within tens of millions of years

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of the big bang

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we're just about out of time i've really

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enjoyed this at home easy science uh

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talking about the 30th anniversary of

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the hubble space telescope but the many

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questions

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that come from this

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this has been fun thanks for joining us

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and we can't wait for the next episode