Hubble’s Retirement

We all know the famous Hubble Space Telescope, responsible for great number of phenomenal universal pictures unseen for the human eye. It was launched on April 24’th, 12:33:51 UTC into low Earth orbit in the year 1990 by the The National Aeronautics and Space Administration or also known as NASA. The telescope is named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble, regarded as one of the most important astronomers of all time. Hubble’s orbit outside the distortion of Earth’s atmosphere allows it to take extremely high-resolution images, with substantially lower background light than ground-based telescopes. Hubble has recorded some of the most detailed visible light images ever, allowing a deep view into space and time. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics such as accurately determine the rate of expansion of the universe.

“First light implies that the light goes all the way through the optics and makes its way to the detectors,” says Dave Leckrone, who was a Hubble deputy project scientist at the time and was the senior project scientist from later in 1990 to 2009. “It’s only when that happens that you can say first light has been achieved.”

It ain’t much, is it? For all of the jaw-dropping, eye-popping, gobsmacking images the Hubble Space Telescope has sent home over the years, the smudgy, black and white picture down right is in some ways the most important. That’s because it is the first picture the telescope took, on May 20’th 1990— overall quarter century ago.

On the right is part of the first image taken with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s (HST) Wide Field/Planetary Camera. It is shown with a ground-based picture from Las Campanas, Chile, Observatory of the same region of the sky. Ground Image: E. Persson (Las Campanas Observatory, Chile)/Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; Hubble Image: NASA, ESA, and STScI

 

 

After more than 25 years of orbital experience our hero has captured a great number of phenomenal pictures, unseen from the human eye. Searching for the current location of our cosmic realm, Hubble is analysing planets, galaxies, nebulas, space rocks, gas, dust in their pure beauty. I am going to share with you the best collection of the space telescope photos ever captured for the past quarter century by The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Carina Nebula Pillar

Stephan’s Quintet

Butterfly Nebula

Mystic Mountain

Spiral Galaxy NGC 2841

Horsehead Nebula in Infrared

A “Rose” Made of Galaxies: Arp 273

Monkey Head Nebula: NGC 2174

Eagle Nebula

Westerlund 2

Globular Cluster 47 Tucanae

Spiral Galaxy NGC 6503

The Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635)

Messier Galaxy 82

The Sombrero Galaxy (M104)

The Helix Nebula

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300

Hubble images and materials created, authored, and/or prepared by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy and the Space Telescope Science Institute (AURA/STScI) are copyrighted in content, presentation, and intellectual, creative origin.