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Hubble space telescope - Exam
Contributed by: Ball
  • 1. When was the Hubble Space Telescope launched?
A) 1990
B) 1995
C) 1985
D) 2000
  • 2. Which space agency launched the Hubble Space Telescope?
A) ISRO
B) NASA
C) Roscosmos
D) ESA
  • 3. What type of telescope is the Hubble Space Telescope?
A) Infrared
B) Reflecting
C) Refracting
D) Radio
  • 4. Which component of the Hubble telescope captures light and directs it to the instruments?
A) Primary mirror
B) Control module
C) Solar panels
D) Antennas
  • 5. What was the main issue with Hubble's primary mirror after its launch?
A) Cracks in the mirror
B) Spherical aberration
C) Lost contact with Earth
D) Power failure
  • 6. Where is the Hubble Space Telescope's control center located?
A) Ames Research Center
B) Johnson Space Center
C) Goddard Space Flight Center
D) Kennedy Space Center
  • 7. How large is the primary mirror of the Hubble Space Telescope?
A) 5 meters
B) 3 meters
C) 2.4 meters
D) 1 meter
  • 8. Who is the telescope named after?
A) Isaac Newton
B) Albert Einstein
C) Galileo Galilei
D) Edwin Hubble
  • 9. What technology was used to correct the Hubble Space Telescope's fuzzy vision?
A) Digital imaging
B) X-ray optics
C) Laser technology
D) Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR)
  • 10. Which regions of the electromagnetic spectrum does Hubble observe in?
A) Microwave and radio waves
B) Infrared, X-ray, and gamma-ray
C) Ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared
D) Visible light only
  • 11. Which mission corrected the spherical aberration in Hubble's optics?
A) STS-125 in 2009
B) STS-61 in 1993
C) STS-135 in 2011
D) STS-31 in 1990
  • 12. How many Space Shuttle missions were conducted to repair and upgrade Hubble?
A) Three
B) Six
C) Seven
D) Five
  • 13. Who was the astronomer that published a paper in 1946 discussing the advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory?
A) Edwin Hubble
B) Lyman Spitzer
C) Hermann Oberth
D) Nancy Grace Roman
  • 14. What was one of the main advantages of a space-based observatory over ground-based telescopes, according to Lyman Spitzer?
A) Space telescopes can observe only visible light.
B) Ground-based telescopes have better angular resolution.
C) Space telescopes cannot observe infrared and ultraviolet light.
D) Limitations on resolution due to atmospheric turbulence are eliminated.
  • 15. What was the first space mission to obtain an ultraviolet spectrum of the Sun?
A) 1962
B) 1946
C) 1975
D) 1983
  • 16. Who is known as the 'Mother of Hubble' for her pivotal role in its development?
A) Nancy Grace Roman
B) Lyman Spitzer
C) Hermann Oberth
D) Edwin Hubble
  • 17. What was the original planned launch year for the Large Space Telescope (LST) before it became known as Hubble?
A) 1990
B) 1979
C) 2001
D) 1983
  • 18. What was the main scientific contribution of Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 2 (OAO-2)?
A) X-ray imaging of the Moon.
B) Gamma-ray observations of black holes.
C) Ultraviolet observations of stars and galaxies from 1968 to 1972.
D) Microwave studies of cosmic microwave background radiation.
  • 19. What program's success encouraged the astronomical community to pursue a Large Space Telescope (LST) as a major goal?
A) The OAO program
B) The LST program
C) The ESA program
D) The Hubble program
  • 20. In which year did NASA establish committees to plan the engineering and scientific goals of the space telescope project?
A) 1970
B) 1983
C) 1974
D) 1977
  • 21. What was the final approved budget by Congress in 1978 for the Hubble project?
A) $100 million
B) $36 million
C) No funding was approved.
D) $5 million
  • 22. What year did NASA aim to launch the Large Space Telescope (LST)?
A) 1974
B) 1983
C) 1990
D) 1978
  • 23. What significant scientific discovery is Edwin Hubble known for confirming?
A) The structure of DNA.
B) The existence of black holes.
C) The theory of relativity.
D) The universe is expanding.
  • 24. What percentage of observing time was guaranteed to European astronomers on Hubble?
A) At least 15%
B) 25%
C) 50%
D) 10%
  • 25. Which company was commissioned to design and build the optical telescope assembly (OTA) for Hubble?
A) Perkin-Elmer
B) Lockheed
C) Kodak
D) Goddard Space Flight Center
  • 26. What was the polishing accuracy required for Hubble's mirror?
A) 10 nanometers
B) 100 nanometers
C) 1 micrometer
D) 500 nanometers
  • 27. Which company constructed a backup mirror using traditional techniques?
A) Kodak
B) Itek
C) Perkin-Elmer
D) Lockheed
  • 28. What was the thickness of each plate in the Hubble mirror's sandwich structure?
A) 10 mm
B) 5 mm
C) 50 mm
D) 25 mm
  • 29. What was the original launch date planned for the Hubble Space Telescope?
A) April 1985
B) March 1986
C) September 1986
D) October 1984
  • 30. What was the thickness of the aluminum reflective coating on Hubble's mirror?
A) 25 nm
B) 65 nm
C) 50 nm
D) 100 nm
  • 31. Which material was used for the protective coating on Hubble's mirror?
A) Titanium nitride
B) Aluminum oxide
C) Magnesium fluoride
D) Silicon dioxide
  • 32. What was the total project budget for the Hubble Space Telescope by 1986?
A) $1.175 billion
B) $750 million
C) $900 million
D) $1.5 billion
  • 33. What was the final launch date for the Hubble Space Telescope after multiple postponements?
A) October 1984
B) March 1986
C) September 1986
D) April 1985
  • 34. What material is used in the HST's frame to keep its parts aligned?
A) Graphite-epoxy
B) Carbon fiber
C) Titanium alloy
D) Aluminum
  • 35. What method was used to reduce the risk of ice formation on HST's instruments?
A) Heating elements were installed in the instruments.
B) A nitrogen gas purge before launch
C) Water-absorbing materials were used.
D) The telescope was coated with an anti-ice material.
  • 36. What was added to the DF-224 during Servicing Mission 1 in 1993?
A) Enhanced communication hardware.
B) A new cooling system.
C) An Intel-based 80386 processor with an 80387 math co-processor
D) Additional memory modules.
  • 37. Which microprocessor did the MAT components use?
A) Hughes Aircraft CDP1802CD
B) Intel 80386 processor.
C) RCA 1802 microprocessor.
D) Westinghouse NSSC-1.
  • 38. Which institution built the Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WF/PC)?
A) European Space Agency
B) University of Wisconsin–Madison
C) Goddard Space Flight Center
D) NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
  • 39. What was the primary function of the Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WF/PC)?
A) Visible light photometry
B) Ultraviolet spectroscopy
C) Infrared observations
D) High-resolution optical imaging
  • 40. How many CCD chips did the WF/PC contain?
A) Sixteen
B) Twelve
C) Eight
D) Four
  • 41. What type of storage facilities were initially used on the Hubble Space Telescope when it was launched?
A) Reel-to-reel tape drives
B) Optical discs
C) Solid state data storage
D) Flash memory
  • 42. What was one of the unexpected findings regarding optical surfaces in LEO from Hubble's mission?
A) They degrade rapidly due to radiation.
B) They require frequent replacement.
C) They are unaffected by vacuum conditions.
D) They can have surprisingly long lifetimes.
  • 43. What color is typically rendered for infrared channels in false-color images from Hubble?
A) Dark blue
B) Bright green
C) Deep red
D) Vivid yellow
  • 44. What was the name of the dwarf planet discovered by Hubble in 2015 as a target for New Horizons' extended mission?
A) Pluto
B) 486958 Arrokoth
C) Eris
D) Sedna
  • 45. What was replaced with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) during Servicing Mission 1?
A) Solar arrays
B) High Speed Photometer
C) Gyroscopes
D) WF/PC
  • 46. Which instrument was kept in hibernation since 2008 but could be revived if WFC3 failed?
A) STIS
B) COSTAR
C) ACS
D) NICMOS
  • 47. What technique does the Frontier Fields program use to study distant galaxies?
A) Gravitational lensing
B) Ultraviolet imaging
C) Radio wave detection
D) X-ray observation
  • 48. What term describes the unknown cause of the universe's accelerated expansion?
A) Cosmic radiation
B) Quantum flux
C) Dark energy
D) Dunkle Materie
  • 49. Who can apply to extend or reduce the proprietary period of Hubble data?
A) NASA administrators
B) The director of STScI
C) Any astronomer
D) The principal investigator (PI)
  • 50. What is the term for the automatic calibration process used on Hubble data?
A) Data compression
B) Pipeline reduction
C) Manual calibration
D) Image enhancement
  • 51. How many mission simulations occurred before Servicing Mission 1?
A) Ten
B) Seven
C) Three
D) Five
  • 52. What technique did astronomers use to partially compensate for Hubble's defective mirror?
A) Astronomers manually adjusted each image.
B) The telescope was recalibrated using ground-based observations.
C) Sophisticated image processing techniques such as deconvolution.
D) They used additional lenses to correct the images.
  • 53. How many countries are involved in the COSMOS collaboration?
A) Five
B) Twenty
C) A dozen
D) Two
  • 54. When did NASA declare the first servicing mission a complete success?
A) January 13, 1994
B) March 1, 1994
C) December 31, 1993
D) February 14, 1994
  • 55. How many papers based on Hubble data had been published in peer-reviewed journals by 2025?
A) Approximately 15,000
B) About 10,000
C) Nearly 30,000
D) Over 22,000
  • 56. What was installed during Servicing Mission 3A to prevent battery overcharging?
A) Heat sink of solid nitrogen.
B) Solid State Recorder.
C) New thermal insulation blankets.
D) Voltage/temperature Improvement Kit (VIK).
  • 57. Which instrument was built by the University of Wisconsin–Madison?
A) Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WF/PC)
B) Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS)
C) High Speed Photometer (HSP)
D) Faint Object Camera (FOC)
  • 58. Where is the Faint Object Camera (FOC) displayed?
A) Space Place at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
B) NASA's Johnson Space Center
C) Dornier museum, Germany
D) Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
  • 59. What is the approximate altitude of Hubble's orbit?
A) 350 kilometers (217 mi)
B) 1000 kilometers (621 mi)
C) 540 kilometers (340 mi)
D) 700 kilometers (435 mi)
  • 60. How many spectral lines could the WF/PC isolate using its set of filters?
A) 48
B) 12
C) 96
D) 24
  • 61. What was considered more accurate but led to the error in Hubble's mirror?
A) Manual measurements.
B) Conventional refractive null correctors.
C) The custom-built reflective null corrector.
D) Computer simulations.
  • 62. Which observatory is coordinated with Hubble for some research projects?
A) Chandra X-ray Observatory
B) James Webb Space Telescope
C) Spitzer Space Telescope
D) Kepler Space Telescope
  • 63. Which astronaut was assigned to Servicing Mission 1 due to their experience in satellite repair procedures since 1976?
A) Buzz Aldrin
B) Neil Armstrong
C) Yuri Gagarin
D) Story Musgrave
  • 64. What event caused the postponement of the Hubble Space Telescope's launch originally planned for October 1986?
A) Delays in manufacturing parts
B) Budget cuts in NASA funding
C) Technical issues with the telescope
D) The Challenger disaster
  • 65. What was one study conducted by amateur astronomers using the Hubble Telescope?
A) Study of black holes
B) Analysis of Earth's climate
C) Observation of exoplanets
D) "Transition Comets – UV Search for OH"
  • 66. What significant discovery was made with Hubble's help in 2016?
A) A new type of black hole
B) An Earth-like planet in the habitable zone
C) A new solar system within our galaxy
D) The farthest confirmed galaxy, GN-z11
  • 67. What type of detectors did the FOC, FOS, and GHRS use?
A) Charge-coupled devices (CCDs)
B) Photon-counting digicons
C) Infrared sensors
D) Photomultiplier tubes
  • 68. How many orbits were used to map the southern half of Andromeda in the PHAST program?
A) 828 orbits.
B) 195 orbits.
C) 1000 orbits.
D) 500 orbits.
  • 69. What technique had obtained higher-resolution optical and infrared images than Hubble before its launch?
A) Aperture masking interferometry
B) X-ray imaging
C) Spectroscopy
D) Radio astronomy
  • 70. What was the resolution accuracy achieved by Hubble's Fine Guidance Sensors (FGS) for astrometry?
A) Within 0.001 arcseconds
B) Within 1 arcsecond
C) Within 0.0003 arcseconds
D) Within 0.01 arcseconds
  • 71. Which Space Shuttle mission successfully launched the Hubble Space Telescope on April 24, 1990?
A) STS-26
B) STS-28
C) STS-31
D) STS-41-C
  • 72. What is the solar avoidance angle for Hubble's observations?
A) 30°
B) 90°
C) 70°
D) About 50°
  • 73. Who headed the commission that investigated the error with the Hubble Space Telescope's mirror?
A) Edwin Hubble
B) Lew Allen
C) Carl Sagan
D) Neil Armstrong
  • 74. What is the estimated mass of comet C/2014 UN271's nucleus compared to other known comets?
A) The same as other known comets
B) Ten times the mass
C) Fifty times the mass
D) Twice the mass
  • 75. How many scientists are involved in the COSMOS collaboration?
A) Exactly 100
B) Less than 50
C) More than 200
D) About 500
  • 76. What was the main issue found by the Allen Commission regarding the Hubble's mirror?
A) The mirror was made of incorrect material.
B) A reflective null corrector had been incorrectly assembled.
C) The mirror was not polished enough.
D) The telescope's software was faulty.
  • 77. What significant discovery was made using Hubble data in the Orion Nebula?
A) Quasars
B) Proto-planetary disks (proplyds)
C) Black holes
D) Dark matter
  • 78. What percentage of the Universe's age do the galaxies in COSMOS span?
A) 100%
B) 90%
C) 75%
D) 50%
  • 79. Which instrument was operational from 1990 to 2002 and replaced by ACS in 2002?
A) Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
B) Fine Guidance Sensor
C) Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph
D) Faint Object Camera (FOC)
  • 80. How many hours per cycle were allocated to amateur astronomers by Riccardo Giacconi?
A) The entire cycle
B) Only a few hours
C) Half of the telescope's time
D) No specific allocation
  • 81. What is the proprietary period for Hubble data before it becomes publicly available?
A) Six months
B) Immediately upon collection
C) Twenty-four months
D) Twelve months
  • 82. What is the nickname of the farthest individual star detected by Hubble in 2022?
A) Earendel
B) Betelgeuse
C) Sirius
D) Rigel
  • 83. What is used to create color images from Hubble's monochromatic data?
A) Direct color imaging sensors
B) Combining separate monochrome images through different filters
C) Using a single wide-spectrum filter
D) Post-processing with artificial intelligence
  • 84. What does the Frontier Fields program aim to provide for galaxies at z > 5?
A) The first statistically meaningful morphological characterization
B) Ultraviolet imaging
C) Observations of young stars
D) Data on outer planets' atmospheres
  • 85. What problem did Servicing Mission 3B resolve for NICMOS?
A) Upgraded its data-handling unit.
B) Installed new solar arrays.
C) Installed a closed-cycle cooler.
D) Replaced its main mirror.
  • 86. What was the intended conic constant for Hubble's mirror?
A) -0.90000
B) -1.50000
C) -1.01390±0.0002
D) -1.00230
  • 87. In which decade did NASA and STScI convene panels to discuss key projects for the Hubble Space Telescope?
A) The late 1970s
B) The mid-1990s
C) The early 2000s
D) The early 1980s
  • 88. How many orbits were used to map the northern half of Andromeda in the PHAT program?
A) 1000 orbits.
B) 828 orbits.
C) 500 orbits.
D) 195 orbits.
  • 89. Which instrument was primarily used for keeping the telescope accurately pointed during observations?
A) Fine Guidance Sensors (FGS)
B) Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WF/PC)
C) Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS)
D) High Speed Photometer (HSP)
  • 90. What was the impact of the Columbia disaster on Hubble's servicing missions?
A) NASA decided to launch the James Webb Space Telescope earlier.
B) Servicing Mission 4 was postponed indefinitely.
C) It led to immediate repairs being made to Hubble.
D) Future crewed service missions were canceled.
  • 91. Which format is used to store all data in the Hubble archive for astronomical analysis?
A) TIFF format
B) FITS format
C) JPEG format
D) PNG format
  • 92. Which galaxy observed by Hubble using gravitational lensing subverted expectations about star formation?
A) MACS 2129-1
B) Andromeda Galaxy
C) Whirlpool Galaxy
D) Sombrero Galaxy
  • 93. Which instrument was operational from 1990 to 1997 and is now displayed in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum?
A) Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS)
B) Wide Field Camera 3
C) Fine Guidance Sensor
D) Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
  • 94. Which Space Shuttle flew the first servicing mission in December 1993?
A) Discovery
B) Endeavour
C) Columbia
D) Atlantis
  • 95. How often are calls for proposals issued for the Hubble Space Telescope?
A) Roughly annually
B) Every two years
C) Monthly
D) Biannually
  • 96. In what year was the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) launched?
A) 2006
B) 1998
C) 2020
D) 2010
  • 97. What was one of the improvements made to Hubble during its delay after the Challenger disaster?
A) Eliminating the need for ground software
B) Reducing the telescope's size
C) Replacing all instruments
D) Swapping out a possibly failure-prone battery
  • 98. Which moon of Jupiter was found to have a subsurface ocean by Hubble in 2015?
A) Ganymede
B) Callisto
C) Io
D) Europa
  • 99. In what year did astronomers use Hubble to determine the size of comet C/2014 UN271's nucleus?
A) 2022
B) 2018
C) 2019
D) 2015
  • 100. Which instrument replaced the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) in 2009?
A) Advanced Camera for Surveys
B) Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
C) Fine Guidance Sensors
D) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3)
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