Over its lifetime, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured many stunning images. Among the most memorable is this edge-on mosaic of the Sombrero galaxy. With its relatively high brightness magnitude and at a distance of 28 million light-years from Earth, Messier 104, as Sombrero is more formally known, is easily viewed through a small telescope.
Photograph by NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI, Aura
The intricately shaped Cat's Eye nebula is formed from concentric gas bubbles and high-speed jets ejected from the outer layers of a dying star. One theory is that the gases were released at 1,500-year intervals, giving the nebula its layered appearance.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, Heic, The Hubble Heritage Team stsci, Aura
Pillars of hydrogen gas and dust streaming from the Eagle nebula give birth to new stars. The largest pillar (left) is an estimated four light-years long and, like its neighbors, is being bombarded by ultraviolet starlight that boils away gas on its surface and exposes the embryonic stars forming in its interior. The stepped shape of this image is caused by the design of Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, Stsci, J. Hester and P. Scowen Arizona State University
This full-color map of Mars was created with Hubble images captured when the planet was at its closest approach to Earth. More southerly regions are not visible because the north of the red planet was tilted toward Earth.
Photograph by Steve Lee University of Colorado, Jim Bell Cornell University, Mike Wolff Space Science Institute, NASA
A pulse of light emitted in 2002 from a red supergiant star called V838 Monocerotis illuminates a cloud of interstellar dust. The dramatic whorls around the central star are trillions of miles across and were unknown to scientists until Hubble snapped this image in 2004.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, & Hubble Heritage Team STSCI, Aura
Streams of charged particles blasted from the sun collide with Saturn's magnetic field, creating an aurora on the planet's south pole. Unlike Earth's relatively short-lived auroras, Saturn's can last for days. Scientists combined ultraviolet images of the auroras, taken by Hubble over a period of days, with visible-light images of the ringed planet. In this view the aurora appears blue because of the ultraviolet camera, but a Saturn-based observer would see red light flashes.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, J. Clarke Boston University, Z. Levay STScI
A Hubble image of supernova 1987A shows a glowing wheel of debris ejected by a dying star some 20,000 years before it exploded. The ring, described as "cosmic pearls," is being illuminated by a shockwave of material emitted by the massive supernova explosion. The two bright spots outside the ring are stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, P. Challis and R. Kirshner Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Two galaxies, known collectively as Arp 87, distort as their gravitational fields interact. The larger of the pair, NGC 3808, is drawing stars, gas, and dust from the smaller. Both galaxies are spiral-shaped and located about 300 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, The Hubble Heritage Team stsci, Aura
This image of the Whirlpool galaxy shows the classic features of a spiral galaxy: curving outer arms where newborn stars reside and a yellowish central core, home to older stars. A companion galaxy called NGC 5195, seen here at the tip of one of Whirlpool's arms (right), has been passing by for hundreds of millions of years and exerting gravitational forces on its larger neighbour.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, the Hubble Heritage STScI, AURA-NONE Esa, Hubble Collaboration
A view of Jupiter taken by Hubble in May 2008 shows a new red spot (far left) on the planet's storm-roiled surface. The new blemish, which appeared in spring of 2006, is significantly smaller than its older siblings, the Great Red Spot (center-right) and Red Spot Jr. Careful study of visible-light images like this one and others taken in near-infrared light suggests that these red spot storms rise high above Jupiter's atmosphere.
Photograph by M. Wong and I. de Pater University of California, Berkeley
In 1999, to commemorate the ninth anniversary since its launch, theHubble Space Telescope took this dramatic snapshot of Jupiter’s moon Io and its shadow sweeping across the gas giant’s turbulent atmosphere. About the size of Earth’s moon, Io is the most volcanic body in the solar system and orbits 500,000 kilometres above the planet’s cloud tops.
Photograph by John Spencer Lowell Observatory and NASA
This 1995 portrait of the Cat’s-Eye Nebula in the Draco constellation is considered one of the most iconic photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Also known as NGC 6543, it is a classic planetary nebula that glows by the high-energy emissions thrown off by the star seen at the centre of the gas cloud. This false colour image shows off the intricate bubbles and twisted features within the 0.2-light-year-wide expanding shell of gas blasted out by a dying sun 3,000 light-years away.
Photograph by J.P. Harrington and K.J. Borkowski University of Maryland, NASA
Looking more like a delicate flower on a stem, a pair of interactinggalaxies known as Arp 273 lie 300 million light-years away in the northern constellation Andromeda. Despite its tranquil appearance, the larger spiral galaxy at the top of this 2011 Hubble image is in the process of being gravitationally ripped apart by its smaller companion galaxy. Connecting the two galaxies is a threadlike stream of starsstretching tens of thousands of light-years.
Rovio takes its popular game to the final frontier with Angry Birds Space, launching March 22, in partnership with National Geographic Books and NASA.Purchase the official companion book National Geographic Angry Birds Space.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, The Hubble Heritage Team stsci, Aura
This craggy fantasy mountaintop enshrouded by wispy clouds looks like a bizarre landscape from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings or a Dr. Seuss book, depending on your imagination. The NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, which is even more dramatic than fiction, captures the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being assaulted from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks. This turbulent cosmic pinnacle lies within a tempestuous stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. The image celebrates the 20th anniversary of Hubble's launch and deployment into an orbit around Earth.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team STScI
In 2004 Hubble revisited the psychedelic gas bubble known as the Cat’s-Eye Nebula, revealing at least 11 previously unknown concentric rings and knots of glowing gas blown out into space by a dying sunlike star. This new high-resolution image revealed to astronomers that shells of stellar material are expelled in 1500-year intervals, creating a cosmic structure similar to layers of onion skin.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, Heic, The Hubble Heritage Team stsci, Aura
Located 20,000 light-years away at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, this red star—complete with dusty cloak—caught the eye of Hubble in 2002 and again in 2005 in the above image, revealing dramatic changes in the illumination of the surrounding cloud.
V838 Monocerotis is a red supergiant star that mysteriously produces multiple flashes of light over time, illuminating different layers of the surrounding gas and dust. This phenomenon, known as a light echo, was first seen by Hubble and may represent a previously unknown, unstable phase in ageing stars many times the mass of our sun.
Photograph by NASA, ESA and H.E. Bond STScI
As if playing a cosmic game of peekaboo, Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, is caught by Hubble’s camera in 2007 just before it slips behind the planet. Images like these help astronomers study the gas giant’s upper atmosphere. Reflected sunlight off the surface of the disappearing moon has to pass through Jupiter's upper cloud deck and atmospheric haze before reaching Hubble detectors, imprinting on the light the chemical fingerprints of the gas giant's atmosphere.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, E. Karkoschka University of Arizona
Looking like a mythical beast rearing its ugly head from a red sea in this famous 2002 Hubble photo, the Cone Nebula is actually a gigantic star-forming region 2,500 light-years away. While the entire nebula extends out to seven light-years across, the above image centers only on the 2.5-light-year-long, cone-shaped pillar of gas that dominates the gas cloud. Intense ultraviolet radiation emitted by newborn stars hidden within the nebula give rise to the eerie red glowing halo seen surrounding the cone structure.
Rovio takes its popular game to the final frontier with Angry Birds Space, launching March 22, in partnership with National Geographic Books and NASA.
Photograph by NASA, H. Ford JHU, G. Illingworth USCS, LO, M. Clampin STScI, G. Hartig STScI, the ACS Science Team
In 2000, Hubble captured a rare alignment of two galaxies, known collectively as NGC 3314. Two large spiral galaxies sitting 130 million light-years away appear to be lined up one behind the other, offering astronomers an opportunity to pick out dark dusty lanes in the foreground galaxy, which is silhouetted on top of the more distant background galaxy.
Photograph by NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI, Aura
Resembling a human head in a parka, this shot of the Eskimo Nebula is one of Hubble's most iconic photos. The colorful gas cloud 5,000 light-years away represents the remnants of a sunlike star exploding 10,000 years ago. The outer region of this planetary nebula contains a radiating pattern of orange-coloured gaseous filaments stretching more than a light-year out; however, astronomers still can't explain how exactly they formed.
Image Courtesy NASA
Located above the blurring effect of Earth's atmosphere, the Hubble Space Telescope has been able to get some of the sharpest views of neighboring planet Mars. This 1999 portrait, captured by the telescope when the red planet was on a close approach to Earth, shows surface features as small as 12 miles across. Highlights of this image include an icy north polar cap flanked on the left by a giant storm composed of ice water clouds, and, just below the cap, a dark region made of sand dunes formed of ancient, pulverised volcanic rocks.
Rovio takes its popular game to the final frontier with Angry Birds Space, launching March 22, in partnership with National Geographic Books and NASA.
A cosmic angel seems to spread its shimmering wings in a newly released Hubble Space Telescope picture of the star-forming region called Sh 2-106.
The cloud of dust and gas is being shaped by a young star called S106 IR. On the cusp of adulthood, the growing star is "rebelling" against its parent cloud, ejecting material at high speeds and creating glowing lobes of hot, turbulent hydrogen gas.
Image Courtesy Esa, NASA
Like a ghostly bubble hanging in space, SNR 0509-67.5 is the last gasp of a massive star snuffed out in a titanic explosion 400 years ago. In 2012, Hubble spied this 23-light-year-wide supernova blast wave expanding at speeds of 11 million miles per hour. It is located in a Milky Way satellite galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud, about 170,000 light-years from Earth.
Image Courtesy Esa, NASA
Even after more than 200 years of observations through telescopes, Neptune remains a planet shrouded in mystery. Nearly three billion kilometers away from the blue-green gas giant, Hubble's keen digital eye has been able to resolve atmospheric detail in Neptune's upper atmosphere. Surrounded by a retinue of moons, high-altitude clouds composed of methane ice crystals near the northern polar region are revealed in this 2005 image.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, E. Karkoschka University of Arizona, H.B. Hammel Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado
Tucked away within the northern constellation of Ursa Major is this 46 million light-year distant galaxy that astronomers believe may be a Milky Way look-alike. Hubble snapped this image of the spiral galaxy NGC 2841 in 2010, showing off its sweeping arms filled with dust lanes and star-forming clouds.
Photograph by NASA and the Hubble Heritage STScI, AURA-ESA, Hubble Collaboration
This eyelike appearance is marred by two sets of blood-red "fliers" that lie horizontally across the image. The surrounding faint green "white" of the eye is believed to be gas that made up almost half of the star's mass for most of its life. The hot remnant star (in the center of the green oval) drives a fast wind into older material, forming a hot interior bubble that pushes the older gas ahead of it to form a bright rim. (The star is one of the brightest stars in any planetary nebula.) NGC 6826 is 2,200 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus.
Photograph by Bruce Balick, Jason Alexander, Arsen Hajian, Yervant Terzian, Mario Perinotto, Patrizio Patriarchi, NASA
Considered the most detailed image ever taken of the famous Crab Nebula, this Hubble portrait shows off countless wispy, branchlike filaments of hydrogen gas throughout the supernova explosion remnant. The electric-blue colouring of the interior of the cloud is the naked core of the dead star at the heart of the Crab Nebula. Ancient Chinese astronomers witnessed the supernova explosion that gave birth to the nebula in A.D. 1054; records indicate there was a new bright star visible in the sky for two weeks.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, J. Hester and A. Loll Arizona State University
Hubble snapped this 2002 image of what looks like November fireworks but is in fact the remnants of a titanic stellar explosion expanding out into space. Considered the youngest supernova in the entire galaxy, gaseous streamers of purple, green, and yellow highlight Cassiopeia A 10,000 light-years away.
Photograph by NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI, Aura
The shadowy form at the center of this snapshot from Hubble is an actual hole within a thick cloud of gas and dust 1,500 light-years away in the winter constellation Orion. Like a streetlamp lighting up surrounding fog, the reflection nebula NGC 199 shines only because of the hot, young star off to the left of the dark hole.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, H. Bond STScI
With spiral arms dominated by young blue stars and a core filled with an older yellow star population, this 100 million light-year distant galaxy takes centre stage in this dramatic 2006 photo by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Spanning only 30,000 light-years across, NGC 1309 is a compact spiral only one-third the size of our Milky Way. Meanwhile dozens of much more distant galaxies can be seen peppering the background of this image.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, The Hubble Heritage Team, Stsci, AURA and A. Riess NONE Stsci
Astronomers believe this Hubble photograph offers a preview of what is in store for our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies billions of years from now. Known affectionately as "the mice" because of their long, rodent-like tails of stars and dust, the two galaxies, known collectively as NGC 4676, are seen colliding into each other 300 million light-years away. Astronomers using supercomputer models show that the two galaxies will eventually merge into one galaxy some 400 million years from now.
Rovio takes its popular game to the final frontier with Angry Birds Space, launching March 22, in partnership with National Geographic Books and NASA.
Photograph by NASA, H. Ford JHU, G. Illingworth UCSC, LO, M. Clampin STScI, G. Hartig STScI, the ACS Science Team, Esa
Ground-based telescopes make the nebula pictured here look rectangular in shape, hence its name: the Red Rectangle. But images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that it should more accurately be called the "Red X" Nebula. The nebula's unique shape comes from gas and dust emitted in cone-shaped bursts from the dying star at its center. This star, which began shedding its outer layers about 14,000 years ago, will slowly become smaller and hotter and begin to release a flood of ultraviolet light.
Rovio takes its popular game to the final frontier with Angry Birds Space, launching March 22, in partnership with National Geographic Books and NASA.
Photograph by NASA, Esa, Hans Van Winckel Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, Martin Cohen University of California, Berkeley
Planet Saturn, along with several of its moons, poses for a Hubble close-up in this 2009 portrait. Taken in 2009 when the gas giant was 775 million miles from Earth, this image shows details as small as 190 miles across.
The large, orange disk is Saturn's moon Titan, which is larger than planet Mercury. Closer to the rings, a parade of three smaller moons are also visible: from left to right, Enceladus and Dione—including their dark shadows cast on Saturn's cloud tops—and Mimas, just off the planet's right side.
Rovio takes its popular game to the final frontier with Angry Birds Space, launching March 22, in partnership with National Geographic Books and NASA.
This view is of an unusual phenomenon in space called light echo. Light from a star that erupted nearly five years ago continues propagating outward through a cloud of dust surrounding the star. The light reflects, or echoes, off the dust, then travels to Earth.
Rovio takes its popular game to the final frontier with Angry Birds Space, launching March 22, in partnership with National Geographic Books and NASA.
The star cluster Prismis 24 hangs above the monstrous emission nebula NGC 6357, seen here in this 2006 image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Located 8,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius, blazing stars some hundred times more massive than our sun lie buried within the nebula and are heating up the gas surrounding the cluster, creating the cavernous bubble visible at the bottom of the image.
Image Courtesy NASA
Two astronauts work in the payload bay of space shuttle Columbia in March of 2002, completing upgrades to the Hubble Space Telescope. The mission was the fourth visit to Hubble since its launch in 1990. A crew of seven astronauts performed five spacewalks, adding an advanced camera, new solar panels, new steering equipment, and a more efficient power system to the orbiting telescope.
Photograph by NASA
The Hubble telescope drifts back into space with Earth as its backdrop on Christmas Day 1999 following a successful servicing mission. Seven astronauts aboard space shuttle Discovery completed three spacewalks over six days to replace the telescope's worn and outdated equipment, including its failing gyroscopes, and perform several maintenance upgrades. Astronauts had a firm return day for this mission—they needed to finish their work and return to Earth before New Year's Day to avoid possible Y2K problems. They landed safely on December 27.
Photograph by NASA
Sunlight glints off the Hubble Space Telescope as it sits suspended over the cargo bay of space shuttle Discovery during a February 1997 servicing mission. It was during this mission that astronauts installed Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), which used technology not available when Hubble was launched in 1990 to provide some of the most stunningly detailed images of faraway galaxies and nebulae.
Photograph by NASA
At 43.5 feet (13.2 meters) tall, the Hubble Space Telescope towers over space shuttle Endeavour's payload bay during the first mission to upgrade the telescope's systems in December 1993. The mission's most important objective was to fix Hubble's infamous vision problem. An incorrectly shaped primary mirror meant the telescope could not focus all the light from an object to a single sharp point, which left a fuzzy halo around images. Two devices that acted as corrective eyeglasses were installed, and a clear-seeing Hubble has been making remarkable cosmic discoveries ever since.
Photograph by NASA
Space shuttle Columbia and the Hubble Space Telescope drift 360 miles (579 kilometers) over the Earth's surface during a servicing mission in March 2002. During the mission, astronauts installed a new refrigeration system in Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), which had been inactive since 1999, when it depleted the nitrogen ice that had cooled it since 1997.
Photograph by NASA
During the first Hubble servicing mission in December 1993, astronauts installed new solar arrays (left) designed to reduce the thermal "jitters" experienced when the telescope transitioned from cold darkness into warm daylight.
Photograph by NASA
Astronaut Story Musgrave moves through space shuttle Endeavour's cargo bay (center) during deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope's new solar array panels. Musgrave was on the last of five spacewalks in the 1993 mission, the first service flight to Hubble. Astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman's arm is visible in the lower left corner.
Photograph by NASA
With the Hubble Space Telescope looming behind him, astronaut Steve Smith prepares to use a specially designed ratchet during the telescope's second servicing mission in 1997. Astronauts performed four days of spacewalks during the ten-day mission, installing new instruments and making repairs.
Photograph by NASA
After a 2002 servicing mission, the Hubble Space Telescope sports new solar arrays on its outside and new instruments inside.