The team behind the famous Hubble space telescope, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, decided to highlight this moment by showing internet users what the satellite had in its sights on their own birthday.
Set up on the NASA website, the tool simply allows astronomy enthusiasts to enter their date of celebration. A photo taken by Hubble during the day in question will then be offered.
Since launching in late April 1990, Hubble has captured thousands of the most impressive images, ranging from planets in our solar system to clusters of distant galaxies. Since it is placed in orbit, the telescope is not hampered by the distortion caused by the atmosphere of our planet, allowing it to more easily observe the confines of the universe.
The photos shown to Internet users offer a beautiful retrospective of the space telescope’s career. These are accompanied by a small explanatory legend on the object sketched in the photo, with the option of going to another page offering much more information.
In parallel, the team is publishing these days on social networks a series of 30 remarkable photos from the history of Hubble.
Designed to operate for at least 15 years, the telescope has practically doubled its initial lifespan, notably thanks to repairs and the addition of equipment over the years. Since its commissioning, it has made about 1.4 million observations and its contribution has enabled the publication of more than 16,000 scientific studies, according to the NASA website.
To find out what Hubble was looking at on your birthday, it’s this way.
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