On May 13, 2009, Space Shuttle Atlantis "grappled" the Hubble Space telescope (translation: hugged) for one final shuttle-Hubble lovefest in space.
This happened 600km above the Earth at a speed of 7km/s, or 25,000 km/hr. The average distance from the Earth to the Sun is 149,000,000 km. So, during this momentus spacehug, Atlantis and Hubble were approximately 148,999,400 km from the Sun.
So, naturally, some guy in Florida did a bunch of math and calculatin' and all that stuff and then pointed his telescope at the sun and took a bunch of photos of the space shuttle and the Hubble passing in front of the sun over the course of 0.8 seconds. Twice! All of this through a small 5 inch telescope.
"Oh man," says the Space Shuttle. "It's hot bein' 148,999,400 km from the Sun. Lonely too."
Shuttle and Hubble together: BFF Friends Forever.
