NASA released the Hubble Space Telescope on April 24, 1990, and Hubble has been busy observing the universe ever since. In honor of his thirtieth birthday, we will explore some of his most memorable and mind-blowing photos, starting with the anniversary photo. This image contains two nebulae, both called Cosmic Reef. When stars are born or when they die, they often throw material with such force that it molds and shapes the environment around the star, creating a nebula. Some nebulae are created by the death of a singular star, while others are existing interstellar gas and dust that function as stellar nurseries for young stars. Some of the most famous nebulae are shaped like horse heads, crabs, and other wacky objects.
Hubble has taught us a lot in its 30 years. Thanks to Hubble we now know that our galaxy is only one of the hundreds of billions in the universe. Because Hubble can study such distant galaxies, it can tell scientists more about the expansion of the universe. Studying these galaxies also helped scientists get an idea of the approximate age of the universe, about 13.8 billion years old.
Grab your birthday candles and paper hats, because this week, we are singing to Hubble.
This is Hubble’s 30th anniversary photo, and it’s a blast. Get to know the Cosmic Reef, technically two nebulae called NGC 2014 (the big red one) and NGC 2020 (the smaller blue neighbor). These two nebulae are found in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way galaxy, located about 163,000 light-years away.Photograph: NASA / ESA / STScI
This 29th anniversary photo shows the Southern Crab Nebula, thousands of light years away. The shape of the hourglass is created by two stars that circulate among themselves and the respective shock waves they generate. A star is an ancient red dwarf (which our sun will one day become) and one is a white dwarf. Each one throws material into space and creates dust and gas tails behind them.Photograph: NASA / ESA / STScI
For Hubble’s 28th anniversary, NASA released a new photo of the Lagoon Nebula. This beauty is a stellar nursery located 4,000 light years away. The central bright star in the photo is Herschel, it is young and huge, reaching 200,000 times brighter than our sun. This star is blasting material outward at hurricane speeds, creating caverns and mountains of stardust.Photograph: NASA / ESA / STScI
These two space friends are 55 million light years away. The galaxy on the left is NGC 4302, and NGC 4298 is on the right. The reddish-brown clusters are accumulating dust, while the bluer regions are the active star formation. If you look into the galaxy to the left, that bright blue area is an extremely active star formation.Photograph: NASA / ESA / STScI
For Hubble’s 26th anniversary, NASA released this stunning image of the Bubble Nebula. The “bubble” is created by the stellar wind coming out of the central star, SAO 20575. It was first discovered by William Herschel in 1787.Photograph: NASA / ESA
Hubble’s 25th anniversary photo explored the cluster called Westerlund 2. This star cluster is young, only around 2 million years old, and found in our own Milky Way galaxy. It contains some of the hottest, brightest, most massive stars that scientists have discovered.Photograph: NASA / ESA / STScI
