My first Magazine Sky & Telescope - 03.2019 | Page 22
To capture our dynamic universe in all its
glory, sometimes our telescopes need to
show a little dynamism themselves.
W
hen asked to think of a space telescope, most
people will immediately picture Hubble staring
motionless into the distance. What they likely
won’t picture is a spacecraft twirling and writhing around
the sky like a Star Wars TIE fi ghter after a fatal shot from the
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M A RCH 2 019 • SK Y & TELESCOPE
Rebel Alliance. Hubble and many other space telescopes —
and amateur astronomers, for that matter — collect images
of the cosmos by remaining as still as possible for as long as
possible to collect as much light as possible. But a surprising
number of space probes opt for the disabled TIE fi ghter strat-
egy — albeit in a far more controlled way.
Several of the earliest satellites spun to stabilize their ori-
entations. Among them were NASA’s Orbiting Solar Obser-
vatories series of satellites (OSO-1 to OSO-8) in the 1960s
and 1970s. The exact design varied among models, but each
Spinning Thr