In fact, scientists tell us that over 200,000 tons of space matter enters the atmosphere each year and burns up on entry. Comets are a big source of meteoroids because of the nature of those long tails. A large amount of dust, ice and other space debris gets caught up in a comet s tail as it moves toward the sun. The best way to recapture the wonder of that moment is to go out in the country with a child of your own or one who has never had this experience and be there at that moment when they gaze up and say that very powerful word that is the only one that can summarize the feelings they are having viewing that magnificent sky. The Hubble space telescope was named after the great scientist and visionary Edward Hubble who discovered that the universe was expanding which was explained by what is now known in science as Hubble s Law. To truly get a feel for the amazing accomplishment that was achieved with the launch of the Hubble telescope, spend some time on Nasa s web site dedicated to the project at hubble. Constellations also have been important in culture and navigation long before we had sophisticated systems of navigation. Early explorers, particularly by sea, relied exclusively on the night sky to help them find their way to their destination. In fact, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and discovered America, he could not have done it without astronomy and the help of navigation of the cosmos, much of which is made possible because of the important constellations. The reflector s strength is in seeing more distant objects and the lens is concave or bends in. It uses mirrors to focus the image that you eventually see. The final type, the Schmidt Cassegrain telescope is the most complex and accomplishes the goals of both but it uses an involved system of mirrors to capture the image you want to see. In 1985, for example, the United States put a probe into the path of the comet Giacobini-Zinner which passed through the comets tail gathering tremendous scientific knowledge about comets. Then in 1986, an international collation of scientists were able to launch a probe that was able to fly close to Haley s comet as it passed near Earth and continue the research.