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 fighter after a fatal shot from the 20 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 fighter strategy - albeit in a far more controlled way. Several of the earliest satellites spun to stabilize their orientations. Among them were NASA's Orbiting Solar Observatories series of satellites (OSO-1 to OSO-8) in the 1960s and 1970s. The exact design varied among models, but each LE AH TISCIONE / S&T Spinning Thr