Happy Birthday, Hubble; No cake but NASA's space telescope still peers back in time

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has a birthday this weekend. Twenty years ago it was launched from the Kennedy Space Center to peer back in time with the most amazing photographs. That's a mere snap of the fingers in galactic time.

For a little perspective, the gap in the clouds on the left is about one trillion miles wide.

Some of the images on these photos don't exist anymore. It took the light from them a million....

...light years, traveling at the speed of 186,000 miles per second, to reach the laser-like vision of Hubble floating above the distracting light and distortions of Earth's atmosphere.

The image above shows a grouping known as NGC620, an actual star nursery within these clouds of gas and dust, some moving many thousands of miles an hour.

These galaxies -- known as M81 and M82 -- are 10 million light years away and have nothing to do with the recent rancorous healthcare debate. A light year is almost 6 trillion miles.

The Hubble telescope, named for American astronomer Edwin Hubble, temporarily tethered to a space shuttle for repairs, hovers more than 300 miles above Earth.

With its laser-like focus Hubble captures the celestial chaos of Orion.

So sharp is the telescope's vision, that orbiting the Earth at 17,000 miles an hour it can still focus and stay focused on pins of light invisible to the naked eye. Astronauts liken it to spotting a dime atop the Washington Monument from the Empire State Building in New York City.

More Hubble images over here.

Nothing to do with Hubble but cool nonetheless. North America as seen from space. Not much electrical conservation going on this night.

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-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photos: All NASA except the Hubble Telescope itself from "Imax Hubble 3D."

Comments

[Tina]

Actually, STScI did have cake. Just saying.

[La]

What is taking Hubble's place? It's one of the most important things "we've" ever done. More learned for the dime, as it were than ever before - by my book.

The images from the Ultra Deep Field were, to me, life changing. 10E24 stars out there? And distances of over 13.7 billion light years - at a minimum?

We need more Hubbles! Quit blowing people up with our tax dollar and put it to better use.

LA

[Tee]

LOVE YOU HUBBLE!!!

[Steffan Lozinak]

I absolutely love this article and the Hubble telescope. I think the Hubble deep space photos are absolutely astounding and are probably the most humbling photos we have ever seen. So many GALAXIES appearing in what appears to be a couple centmeters of nothing... Truly astounding

[Joe the Astronomer]

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is next:

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/