Hubble Space Telescope - The Best Images From Over Two Decades In Orbit

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1990 Saturn: Among the first images to be sent back from Hubble after its launch in April 1990, this image of Saturn is good by the standards of ground-based telescopes, but slightly blurry.

1991 Orion Nebula: Although not perfectly sharp, this early image of the Orion Nebula nevertheless shows the rich colours and structures of this bright star-forming region.

1992 Herbig-Haro 2: Throughout the region of the Orion Nebula are numerous streamers of gas that come from newborn stars, known to astronomers as Herbig-Haro Objects.

1993 Messier 100: In late 1993, Hubble's teething problems were resolved in the first servicing mission. Before-and-after images of the core of spiral galaxy Messier 100 show how this dramatically improved the telescope's image quality.

1994 Shoemaker-Levy 9 hits Jupiter: Soon after the astronauts repaired Hubble during the first servicing mission, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter. A similar impact on Earth 65 million years ago is thought to have killed off the dinosaurs.

1995 Eagle Nebula: Hubble's image of the 'pillars of creation' in the Eagle Nebula is one of its most famous. These huge, dusty structures enshroud pockets of ongoing star formation.

1996 NGC 6826: This image from 1996 shows a planetary nebula, which represents the other extremity of a star's life from the Eagle Nebula. Planetary nebulae form when Sun-like stars puff out their outer layers as they run low on fuel.

1997 Mars: NASA's Mars Pathfinder probe was en route to Mars in 1997 while Hubble took this image.

1998 Ring Nebula: Another planetary nebula, the Ring Nebula is one of the most famous.

1999 Keyhole Nebula: The Keyhole Nebula, part of the larger Carina Nebula is another bright star-forming region.

2000 NGC 1999: Not all nebulae glow brightly. NGC 1999 contains a dark patch silhouetted against a brighter background which reflects starlight.

2001 ESO 510-G13: Hubble's image of this galaxy shows the dramatic deformations that can occur after collisions between galaxies. Although the immense distance between stars makes it vanishingly unlikely for stars to actually collide with each other, the tidal forces can warp and tear galaxies out of shape.

2002 Cone Nebula: Further upgrades in 2002, including the installation of the Advanced Camera for Surveys increased resolution and picture quality again. Hubble's ultra-sharp image of the Cone Nebula demonstrates the new instrument's capabilities.

2003 Hubble Ultra Deep Field: Usually astronomers know what they're going to look at when they plan their observations. For the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, observed over 11 days between September 2003 and January 2004, they did not. Pointing the telescope at an extremely dark patch of sky devoid of nearby stars, this extremely long exposure was designed to see the most distant and faintest galaxies in the Universe.

2004 Antennae Galaxies: The dramatic collision of two spiral galaxies is visible in this image of the Antennae Galaxies.

2005 The Orion Nebula: This image of the Orion Nebula is one of the largest and most detailed ever made.

2006 Messier 9: Globular clusters, roughly spherical collections of stars, contain some of the oldest stars in our Milky Way. Hubble's high resolution observations allow astronomers to discern individual stars right into the centre of these clusters.

2007 NGC 4874: This image of NGC 4874, a galaxy in the Coma Cluster, was taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys just two days before it suffered an electronic failure in January 2007. For the next two years, astronomers would have to make do with lower resolution images from Hubble's other cameras.

2008 NGC 2818: This image of planetary nebula NGC 2818 dates from this period. It is worth noting that even with its capabilities constrained, Hubble was still able to produce images that compete with any telescope on the ground.

2009 Bug Nebula: In 2009, astronauts travelled to Hubble for another servicing mission, which installed new and upgraded cameras. The Bug Nebula was one of the first images sent back: Hubble was back in business.

2010 Centaurus A: Using its new instrumentation, Hubble peered into the heart of Centaurus A, a dramatically dusty galaxy.

2011 Tarantula Nebula: This image of the Tarantula Nebula combines a mosaic of Hubble observations, which capture the detail and structure of the nebula, with observations of glowing hydrogen and oxygen from the European Southern Observatory's MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope in Chile, which provide colour.

[FourAngelsX]

Music sounds like some old school FF I love it

[Quagigitymire]

Personally, I admire the Whirlpool and Sombrero galaxies taken not only just from the Hubble (which are still amazing to see) but when combining the big 3 the pictures of these 2 galaxies are breath taking in their beauty and the wonder inspired. I truly look forward to the new pictures and discovers from the new James Webb and other more advanced telescopes we put into orbit.

[Anonymoose]

Fantastic video! The evolution of the telescope itself is evident here, with some of the recent deep field imagery surpassing anything we've ever dreamed of seeing.

And as a kid, I built a 12" Cassegranian reflector and thought what I was seeing was

[kurtilein]

my number one is the hubble false color image of the carina nebula. It also features the "magic mountain" and the supermassive about-to-explode star Eta Carinae.

The big image of the carina nebula from hubble is my favorite one, when zooming around / exploring it, it takes longer to get boring than the pillars of creation. If you dont know it already, and like the eagle nebula, you will definitively like this one as well.

[NicosMind]

The very first pick of Saturn in 1990 made me instantly think of the pics amature astronomers are capable of taking from their back garden.
Also i cant believe it took me to nearly half way to go full screen. I was watching it on the mid size screen(my favorite)

[RobSinclaire]

thank you to all who made this possible

[tarnishedmercury]

Ive grown up seeing a lot of these amazing images and I still sometimes find it hard to believe that they're real
absolutely astonishing

[freesk]

Sorry, I don't understand your question. There is a tight band, a region of wavelengths that our eyes can perceive. Any frequencies higher and lower than that tight band are invisible to our eyes, but not to our machines. This band of wavelengths does not "shift." But you may be referring to the Doppler effect? This is where stars receding from us look "redder" and stars coming towards us look "bluer" just like when a car goes by us the sound seems to change...

[Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

Beautiful!
This is an invitation to see an artist theory on the physics of light and time!

[baycast]

Awesome!! My favourite is the Eagle Nebula. I still find it hard to believe that all of that beauty and wonder is right above us. Thanks for the great video.

[BoobzTwo]

Amazing progress and in just twenty years. I have hundreds of pictures from Hubble in my personal library and am hard pressed to pick favorites.

[jdbg]

So much beauty... I'm speachless... How little we humans are... it makes me feel so good c:

[SailorBarsoom]

Wow, now that's some beautiful imagery.

[happysnappera]

and to think all this could be the dirt under a giant's finger nail

[kurtilein]

yes, we can figure out how it would look like for our human eyes, thats how the images that are not false color are being produced. The hubble telescopes has a bunch of filters that it can use to look at specific wavelengths, many other telescopes have this ability as well. so you take one image with the red filter, one image with the green filter, and so on, and then 1to1 use the actual colors and brightness to make a composite color image.

[ahamzah]

Beautiful
Science never ceases to amaze

[kurtilein]

by the way, the first images are fuzzy and blurry because thats how the Hubble telescope started out. Some subcontractors used the non-scientific and obsolete historical length measurement called "Inch", and an unit transversion error caused one lens to be polished the wrong way.

They had to go up and fix it by adding a correction lens. Then the crisp and now famous images started coming :) These old units like inch, gallon and mile should really be abandoned.

[maccamuffin]

Spectacular, only 2:14 keeps making me think of the super star destroyer

[kuvceebxab]

Oh God how my heart forever yearn and long for the stars. May humanity finally mature up and take its rightful place in the cosmos.

[Junketh]

These shots are amazing! Thanks for uploading this video!