31 years of Hubble telescope images
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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Hubble captured this image of the rare blue variable star AG Carinae, located 20,000 light-years from Earth in the Milky Way, to celebrate the 31st anniversary of its launch. The star underwent several explosions that created its distinctive aura.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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The Gemini Nebula is 1,500 light-years from Earth and is located at Orion belt in the constellation Orion. This is one of the brightest nebulae – and on a bright and dark night can be seen with the naked eye. The nebula is the star -forming area closest to Earth.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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The Hubble Space Telescope was launched from Space Shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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Hubble has given us many pictures of our neighbor Mars. This image was taken in 2003 when Mars was approaching its closest point nearly 60,000 years ago. On August 27, 2003, the two worlds were only 34.6 million miles from center to center. In contrast, Mars could be about 249 million miles from Earth.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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This image, taken by the Hubble Telescope in 2007 at Ganymede, appears peeking out from beneath Jupiter. Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system, larger than Mercury.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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The Hubble Telescope captured this image of Saturn in 2004, a view so sharp that some of the rings of the smaller planet can be seen.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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Hubble tracks the clouds above Uranus in this 1997 image. The image is a composite of three near-infrared images. The planet’s rings stand out in the near infrared. Eight of Uranus’ 27 moons can be seen in both images. Uranus is about 1.75 billion miles from Earth.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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Hubble took this image of Neptune’s distant blue-green world in 2005. Fourteen different color filters were used to help scientists learn more about Neptune’s atmosphere. Neptune is about 2.8 billion miles from Earth.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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Hubble discovered four of Pluto’s five moons. In 2005: Nix and Hydra discovered. Hubble discovered Kerberos in 2011 and Styx in 2012. This new discovery joins Pluto’s large moon, Charon, which was discovered in 1978. Styx was discovered by scientists using Hubble to search for potential hazards to the New Horizons spacecraft flying nearby. Pluto As of July 2015, Pluto is about 2.9 billion miles from Earth.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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The iconic Horsehead Nebula is a favorite target for astronomers. Look closely and you’ll see what looks like a horse’s head rising to the stars. This Hubble image captures the nebula at infrared wavelengths. This nebula is 1,600 light years from Earth.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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The Cat’s Eye Nebula is a collection of glowing gas that is spewed out by dying stars into space. This Hubble Space Telescope image shows structural details including high-velocity bursts of gas and unusual gas knots. This color image is a combination of three images taken at different wavelengths. The age of the nebula is estimated to be around 1,000 years. It is about 3000 light years from Earth in the constellation Draco.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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The Insect or Butterfly Nebula looks like a butterfly spreading its wings across the galaxy. It is actually a cloud of raging gas ejected by a dying star. Scientists say the gas is over 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit and expanding in space at more than 600,000 miles per hour. This image was taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, a camera installed on Hubble during a May 2009 update by space shuttle astronauts. This nebula is about 3800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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Astronomers combined several Hubble images taken in 2014 to create a better rendering of the 1995 Hubble Telescope’s iconic “Pillars of Creation.” This new image shows a wider view of the pillar, which is up to 5 light-years high. The pillars are part of the small region of the Eagle Nebula, which is about 6,500 light-years from Earth.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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This massive nebula is located 7,500 light years from Earth in the constellation Carina. It is one of the largest and brightest nebulae and is a nursery for new stars. It also has many stars estimated to be at least 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun, including Eta Carinae, one of the brightest stars known and one of the most massive stars in the Milky Way.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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One of the Milky Way’s closest neighbors, the Andromeda Galaxy, is visible to the naked eye if you know where to look on a clear, dark night. In 2012, scientists using data from Hubble estimated that Andromeda would collide with the Milky Way in about four billion years. Andromeda is 2.5 million light years from Earth.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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The Cigar Galaxy is 12 million light years away. It got its name from its shape: from the ground it looks like an elongated oval disk.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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Called one of the most photogenic: The Sombrero Galaxy looks like a giant, wide-brimmed Mexican hat among the stars. This can be observed with a small telescope. It is about 28 million light years from Earth.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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This group of galaxies is about 290 million light years from Earth. It is named after its discoverer, French astronomer Edouard Stephan, who first discovered it in 1877.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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The Hubble Telescope captured this image of a group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. The larger galaxy has a central disk distorted into a rose-like shape by clouds from its partner below.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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In 2004, astronomers revealed the deepest image of the observable universe ever taken. The million-second exposure, called the Hubble Ultradeep Field, captured the first galaxies to appear shortly after the Big Bang. The image shows about 10,000 galaxies. In 2012, astronomers compiled an enhanced image called the Hubble Deep Field. I collected 10 years of Hubble Space Telescope images taken from a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra Depth Field. The new image contains about 5,500 galaxies.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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This 2018 Hubble image shows the Lagoon Nebula, a chaotic nursery filled with young stars. At the center of this image is a young star 200,000 times brighter than our sun spewing ultraviolet light.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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Even stars love to blow bubbles. This 2016 photo Hubble shares Hubble’s view of the Bubble Nebula, where a massive, massive star blows a giant bubble into space. This nebula is 7 light years in diameter.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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The Cone Nebula is a star-forming column of gas and dust. It’s 7 light-years away, but this image taken by Hubble in 2002 shows the top 2.5 light-years (the equivalent of 23 million round trips to the Moon). Ultraviolet radiation causes hydrogen gas to emit a strange red glow.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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This is a detailed look at the part of a slowly expanding supernova, or remnant of an exploding star. Hubble captured this image in 2015 from the Veil Nebula, which is 2,100 light-years away. The star was once twenty times the mass of our sun, but only a lump of gas remains.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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In 2009, NASA’s main observatories, including Hubble along with the Spitzer Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory, combined the power of their observations to create an unprecedented composite image of the center of our Milky Way. Infrared light and X-rays captured by the telescope can be seen here. Hubble’s contributions are shown in yellow, Spitzer’s observations in red, and Chandra’s observations in blue and purple.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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Hubble also collaborated with Spitzer to create this stunning image of the Orion Nebula in 2006. The image combines visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light. The yellow color in the center of the image represents a group of massive stars.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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Hubble captured this view of the expanding halo around the star V838 Monocerotis in 2004.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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M83 is the closest spiral galaxy, and this 2014 Hubble image shows thousands of star clusters and supernova remnants. Young stars can be seen in pink bubbles of hydrogen gas.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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This infrared image taken by Hubble in 2014 shows the Monkey Head Nebula, where star birth occurs at a distance of 6,400 light-years from us. Clouds of glowing dust and gas swirl together here, representing material for star formation.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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Hubble captured ultraviolet observations of the giant star Eta Carinae in 2019. This star is the largest of the two orbiting each other. Violent explosions are known, as evidenced by the bubbles here.
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31 years of Hubble telescope images
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Fireworks are more beautiful in space. The Hubble Telescope captured this image of a giant cluster of 3,000 stars in 2015. It’s called Westerlund 2, and is located 20,000 light-years from Earth.
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