 Using balloons and rockets, astronomers have successfully launched telescopes into Earth orbit above the distorting effects of the atmosphere. To explore deep space, NASA has had great success with robotic probes like Voyager, that have observed and sent back images of our solar system. NASA and its partner, the European Space Agency, are now on the verge of launching a huge optical observatory into orbit around the Earth. Hubble Space Telescope will see objects even near the edge of the known universe with ten times finer detailed than possible from the ground. At the heart of the observatory is an eight-foot mirror ground to near perfection. When pointed at an object, the mirror collects light and sends it to six instruments. Various satellites and ground stations relay the instrument's information to the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. Viewing screens will allow scientists to make real-time observations. At the same time, a tremendous amount of data will be generated, according to Dr. Eric Cheson. We're talking about a huge amount of information. In fact, we colloquially refer to this as drinking from a fire hose. In order to help astronomers plan observations, the Space Telescope Institute has the largest star catalog in the world, containing 19 million celestial objects. The catalog was made by scanning over 1,400 photographic plates of the entire sky. The plates are also stored in a giant database, so astronomers can call up a region like the Andromeda Galaxy and manipulate the images with false color. In our lifetime, Space Telescope should match the discoveries made since the beginning of astronomy. We hope to see, in the words of Galileo, Galilei, wondrous things. Those are the words that he used in 1609. We want to see star systems. We want to see images of the planets. But in particular, Space Telescope is designed to look out into deep space, to study deep space astrophysics, to go out to a realm that we've not yet been able to study well.